Peabody Dominates Fourth Quarter in Win
Posted on January 17th 2012
by Jan Taylor
The Peabody Tanners boy's basketball team inched one step closer to a shot at making the Massachusetts state tournament after defeating the Swampscott Big Blue, 58-53, in a back and forth game at Swampscott High School on Friday night.
The visiting Tanners started the night off slow and host Swampscott started the scoring in the first quarter when Val Temin hit a 3-pointer. Swampscott was ahead for most of the first quarter. Peabody would grab their first lead of the game when they scored three straight 3-pointers, one from Yardley Taverez and two from Steve Girolamo, to end the first quarter. The Tanners were ahead 11-8 at the end of the first.
The Tanners picked up where they left off in the second quarter to take their biggest lead of the half when Mike Gould scored four of his game high 21 points to give his team a seven point lead. After Peabody started the second quarter strong, Swampscott scored seven straight points, and went ahead when Mike Walsh hit a 3-pointer. Swampscott would lead 19-18 at halftime.
Peabody’s Jared McCarron scored the first two points of the third quarter to put his team ahead to open the second half. Both teams went back and forth for the rest of the quarter. Swampscott went ahead for the remainder of the third when Dan Santanello scored two of his nine total points. They were ahead by six points on three seperate occasions in the third quarter. Gould scored nine points, including eight from the free throw line, to help Peabody keep pace with Swampscott in the quarter..
For most of the fourth quarter, Swampscott was in control of the game. Temin drained another 3-pointer to open up the fourth quarter and give his team their largest lead of the game. After that point Peabody scored six straight points, including a 3-pointer by Girolamo, to cut Swampscott’s lead to one point.
The Tanners tied the game 42-42 when Jason Hiou hit two free throws. Santanello then hit two free throws to put Swampscott ahead again. The Tanners went ahead for the rest of the game when Hiou netted two more at the charity stripe. Despite four free throws for the Big Blue, three from Walsh and one from John King, Peabody was too much for Swampscott and scored the last six points of the game.
“This was a very important win since we are hoping to make the tournament,” said Hiou. “We played sloppy in the first half but were able to take advantage of some turnovers and fouls by Swampscott.”
With the win, Peabody improved to 5-4 and Swampscott fell to 3-5.
