Melrose Wins OT Thriller As Stoneham Frustrated Again

Some day Stoneham will beat Melrose.

But on a Friday night at Fred Green Memorial Field the Red Raiders extended Stoneham's run of frustrating near misses, beating the Spartans, 44-38, in overtime. Last fall Melrose beat Stoneham, 15-14, and it's been longer than anyone can remember since Stoneham beat their neighbors. Subscribe to Melrose Patch for more local news and alerts

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Stoneham fell to 4-1 while Melrose improved to 5-0 and all but clinched the Middlesex Freedom title.

With the score tied at 38-38 after 44 minutes of back-n-forth football, Melrose got the ball first in overtime. On the first play junior Isaac Seide scored to make it 44-38. The Red Raiders ran the same play on the two-point conversion but Seide fumbled and it was Stoneham's turn.

On the Spartans' first play senior Tre Pignone lost two yards. On second down Christos Argyropoulos gained six back. On third down quarterback Jack McCabe completed a pass to Pignone but he was ruled out-of-bounds. Now it was fourth down and McCabe again hit Pignone, but the Melrose defense stopped him short of the end zone. Game over. Frustration extended.

As Melrose celebrated, Stoneham coach Bob Almeida gathered his team.

"I told them that I asked them to do one thing going into this, to show everybody that we're going to play hard for four quarters," said Almeida. "It wasn't always perfect, we know that. We played as hard as we could and I'm really proud of them. I told them, moving forward if we line up and play like we can and be as physical and aggressive as we can, we're going to be in this thing and it will come down to who makes a play.

"Obviously they made one more play than we did, but moving forward we have good things to expect from ourselves and that's all you can ask. That's the kind of effort it takes to beat a team that makes very few mistakes."

Early on it looked like Stoneham might have an easy time of it, jumping out to a 22-6 lead after two touchdowns by Pignone and one by Seth Russell on a 45-yard interception return. Except for Rey Guity's kickoff return for a touchdown, Melrose's offense was sputtering.

But then Melrose finally woke up, cutting the margin to 22-14 on a 7-yard scoring pass from Jack Sullivan to Jack Whitley, then tying the game just before the half on Guity's 4-yard run.

The third quarter was scoreless but ended with Stoneham on the 1-yard line. Pignone scored his third touchdown to start the fourth and Stoneham was up, 30-22.

But Melrose responded and it was soon 30-30 after Seide's 21-yard run with 6:38 left. Stoneham took over and eight plays later Pignone's fourth touchdown, a 24-yard run, made it 38-30.

With 2:18 on the clock there was plenty of time for Melrose. The Red Raiders began at their own 43 and two completions by quarterback Charlie Stanton, one for 12 yards, the next for 35, put the ball at the 3 with 1:33 to play. Guity scored his third touchdown and Seide's third conversion run made it 38-38. A Melrose interception followed by a 45-yard field attempt kept the final seconds interesting but only served to set up the overtime drama.

"They played for four quarters and more and gave it everything that they had," said Almeida. "We have things to fix but certainly the heart of Stoneham is there and we're pretty proud of these kids."