Malden’s McGuffie unstoppable again: 225 yards, 4 TDs vs. Revere

Patriots outlast Tornados in 40-36 scoreboard assault for both teams

By Steve Freker

The ghost of John Madden might have been walking along the sidelines Friday night; he was definitely spotted around the Della Russo Stadium scoreboard. With the way the Malden-Revere football battle went that evening, it was most definitely more akin to a video game than a high school game.

Just look at some of the numbers that blew up off the field Friday, particularly from Malden’s #2, sophomore running back Jayden McGuffie. For the night, it was “All Jayden, All the Time” for Malden. Every time he touched the ball — and he touched it a lot! — it seemed something remarkable might happen. On Friday, usually it did. McGuffie carried the ball 29 times for 225 yards and scored four touchdowns and three two-point conversion runs. Remarkably, those are signature numbers for most high school running backs, and they are huge for a single game, but McGuffie has put up high ones in his career.

Still, scoring 28 points in one game is indeed a second-best. Last year against Somerville, in a 42-36 loss, McGuffie scored ALL of Malden’s points.

He nearly did that as well in Friday night’s game, another high-scoring loss for Malden, 40-36, at Revere. Malden went to 2-5 overall with the result, 2-3 in the Greater Boston League. For Revere, it was just the Patriots’ second win of the season (2-5, 2-3 GBL).

For the second game of the last three, Malden scored 30 points or more and came away empty, despite another remarkable performance by McGuffie, who earned Boston Herald “Player of the Week” honors for his big game.

McGuffie is in the midst of a tremendous season, already over 1,000 yards for the second straight season (1,085 on 123 carries), 14 touchdowns, 10 two-point conversions and 104 points total — in just seven games, with four remaining. The 104 points is second in all of Division 3. The season McGuffie is having, Madden Football might want to consider putting Malden’s McGuffie on their next cover!

But for all McGuffie’s heroics. Malden’s defense just could not stop Revere when it had to do it.

“When you have a player like Jayden [McGuffie] putting up numbers like that, we have to play defense or it does not matter how many points we score,” said Malden High Head Coach Witche Exilhomme. “They could not stop us when we had the ball, but we didn’t stop them either and they scored one more time than us in the fourth quarter.”

Every time Revere scored a TD, Malden raced right back to tie it, until the fourth quarter when Patriot quarterback Reda Aloui busted out to score two TDs in the span of 2 1/2 minutes to put Revere out to a 40-30 lead with less than 4 minutes to play.

Despite it being a night when Revere seemed to run the ball at will, it was actually a long pass completion from Aloui to Mario Ramirez that essentially sealed Malden’s fate. On a third and 12 play on Malden’s 45-yard line and the score 30-28, Revere, and 8:11 left on the game clock, Aloui threw a bomb to Ramirez, who caught the ball at Malden’s 4-yard line. Aloui went in to score on the next play to put Revere ahead 34-28.

Malden was still within reach at this point and drove the ball back down the field to about midfield and would have been third down and 1 at the Revere 33-yard line. Then disaster struck in the form of a penalty flag. Malden has had issues with way too many penalties this season — often at inopportune moments — and this was one of them. The personal foul — unsportsmanlike conduct after the whistle — penalty pushed Malden all the way back 15 yards to the Tornado 49-yard line. A run by McGuffie went nowhere, and an interception on a batted ball in the Malden backfield followed as the penalty led to the turnover. Revere drove the ball down the field on runs by Martinez and Aloui, and Aloui stuck in his second TD of the fourth quarter with 4:21 left to play and a 40-28 score in favor of Revere.

Down two scores, Malden did not throw in the towel, engineering one last drive on some more McGuffie runs and a 12-yard keeper by Billy Gavin. McGuffie stuck in his fourth touchdown and points 25 and 26 on the night on a 3-yard, then two more points and 28 points for the night.

The game was back-and-forth all night, with Revere striking first in the first quarter on a Ramirez 3-yard TD and led, 6-0, after one period. Malden came right back early in the second and took the lead on a 8-yard TD by McGuffie and the conversion, 8-6.

Then was a wild seesaw for the rest of the period. Two TDs by Revere — 80-yard run by Ramirez and 24-yard run by Anthony Peletare for a 21-yard TD run for a 20-8 lead — then, rapid fire, a sizzling, 60-yard TD run by McGuffie and then, after senior Matthew Candelario Da Costa recovered a Revere fumble, a 59-yard scoring drive capped by a McGuffie 2-yard run and a 22-20 Malden lead at halftime.

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EXTRA POINTS: Malden was right back in action last night, hosting non-leaguer Whittier Tech at Macdonald Stadium. It was Senior Night for Football Players (16) and Cheerleaders (9)… This was Malden’s final scheduled home game, though there might be one (or two) more depending on the schedule of the two non-playoff games coming next week (Nov. 7-8) and the following week (Nov. 14-15)… This year’s 138th Malden-Medford Thanksgiving Day game is on the road at Medford at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, November 27… Jayden McGuffie has scored 10 touchdowns in the past three games for Malden, something no other Malden player is believed to have accomplished… Malden quarterback Billy Gavin was the second-leading rusher for the visiting Tornados against Revere, with 31 yards on six carries… For some reason, Revere reported to the Boston newspapers that the team rushed for 420 yards against Malden. No way. It must have been a typographical error; we hope it was not intentionally reported that way. IF a team rushed for 420 yards, it would probably be a school and league record for a single game. Maybe 300? Maybe.

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FOOTBALL LINESCORE: REVERE 40, MALDEN 36

Malden            0                      22                    0                      14 — 36

Revere            6                      14                    8                      12 — 40

First quarter

Revere — Mario Ramirez 3-yard run (rush failed)

Second quarter

Malden — Jayden McGuffie 6-yard run (Jayden McGuffie run)

Revere — Mario Ramirez 80-yard run (rush failed)

Revere — Anthony Pelatere 24-yard run (Reda Atoui pass from Reda Atoui)

Malden — Jayden McGuffie 60-yard run (rush failed)

Malden — Jayden McGuffie 2-yard run (Jayden McGuffie run)

Third quarter

Revere — Anthony Pelatere 21-yard run (Jose Fuentes run)

Fourth quarter

Malden — Billy Gavin 52-yard run (rush failed)

Revere — Reda Atoui 4-yard run (rush failed)

Revere — Reda Atoui 25-yard run (rush failed)

Malden — Jayden McGuffie 3-yard run (Jayden McGuffie run)