Seide’s OT run lifts Red Raiders
MELROSE — Something had to give when undefeated Stoneham traveled to undefeated Melrose last night in a Middlesex League showdown at Fred Green Field.
It took four quarters plus an overtime period before a 10-yard touchdown run from Isaac Seide lifted Melrose past Stoneham, 44-38, in a classic.
With the win, Melrose (50,
MELROSE 44 STONEHAM 38
3-0) owns first place in the Freedom Division.
“Our kids played their hearts out for four quarters and then some,” Melrose coach Tim Morris said. “They never panicked and they kept playing because I knew that (Stoneham) wasn’t going away.”
Trailing 38-30 with under three minutes left in regulation, the Red Raiders went 62 yards in eight plays before Rey Guity (three TDs) barreled in from 3 yards out and Seide followed with the conversion to tie the game at 3838 at the end of regulation.
In the first overtime period, Seide took the first play from scrimmage 10 yards to put Melrose up, 44-38. Stoneham, which hadn’t trailed all game until that point, failed to score on its only possession when Red Raiders senior captain Colin Kiernan stopped Tre Pignone (three TDs) short of the goal line to secure the victory.
“We fought back to get it tied,” Morris said. “It was a slugfest back-and-forth where they threw everything at us and we threw everything at them.”
The wild finish was set up by a see-saw first half.
Stoneham (4-1, 2-1) took the opening kickoff, and behind the running of Pignone and Christos Argyropoulos, went 69 yards on 12 plays before Pignone plunged in from the 1 to put the Spartans up, 8-0, (Argyropoulos rush) just five minutes into the game. But Melrose answered immediately when Guity took the subsequent kickoff 90 yards to the house to cut the deficit to 8-6.
The Spartans needed only two plays to retake the lead as quarterback Jack McCabe hit a wide-open Pignone in stride for a 56-yard scoring strike to put Stoneham up, 14-6, at the end of the first quarter. And on Melrose’s first possession of the second, sophomore Seth Russell put the Spartans up 22-6 when he stepped in front of a pass in the flat and returned it 45 yards for a pick-6. McCabe found Thiago DeAmeida for the two-point conversion.
But a long kickoff return from Seide set the Red Raiders up deep inside Stoneham territory before QB Jack Sullivan hit Jack Whitley for a 6-yard TD to slice the lead. Sullivan found Michael Fennell for the conversion to make it a 22-14 game.
From there the Melrose defense went to work, forcing a Spartans fumble that ignited a half-ending drive that the Red Raiders culminated with a Guity 3-yard TD run and conversion rush that made it a 22-22 game at halftime.