PEABODY — Salem boys basketball coach Tom Doyle boarded his team's bus wearing a wide smile knowing his team just took a huge step toward qualifying for the state tournament.
Meanwhile, Peabody first-year coach Thad Broughton sat in his office talking about the uphill climb his Tanners now face after dropping a 62-55 decision to the Witches.
In what was an ultimate state tournament swing game, Salem headed home with an 8-5 (9-5 overall with an exclusion game against Everett) record and a qualifying mark clearly in sight.
Peabody, on the other hand, has now dropped three in a row and sits at 7-9 needing to find three wins against upcoming opponents Beverly, Lynn Classical, Lynn English and Revere.
"There's a lot of season left and our guys are optimistic. We face a couple of teams in the NEC that are tough, but we realize that if we play good basketball we can compete with anybody," Broughton said. "We're very optimistic and we think we have as good a chance as anybody and our goal is still to get into the tournament."
The tournament is also the top priority for Salem, but that picture was a little fuzzy when the Witches were sitting at 5-5. Consecutive victories over Winchester, Gloucester and now Peabody have lifted the fog on the Witches' postseason plans.
"It's a big step for us toward a tournament berth," Doyle said. "This was a huge game for us. We have to get two more but this was a pivotal game for both teams."
The first half was a game of runs and Salem ended up producing the biggest one with a 17-4 spurt to close the second quarter. The Witches trailed 16-15 early in the second quarter, but led 32-20 at intermission. Junior guard Billy Muse hit a pair of threes and had another hoop during the run.
Peabody continued to hang around in the second half, but Salem guard Christian Dunston scored 17 of his game-high 18 points after intermission.
"He's a complete difference-maker. He's an all-around player," Broughton said about Dunston, who missed the first game against Peabody due to a concussion. "He's a leader and he's someone that is very tough to game plan for because he can shoot from the outside and he can also take it in. He's just a great player in our league and we have a lot of respect for him."
Salem's defensive focus was to slow down Tanner guard Stephen Girolamo. That game plan worked well in the first half, but Girolamo shook free to sink four three-pointers in the second half to keep Peabody alive. Girolamo's 12 points were a team-high for the Tanners, while Ben Martinez added eight.
Muse (14 points) and Marvin Baez (13) joined Dunston in double figures for Salem.
The Tanners cut the deficit to eight points on a couple of occassions with the chance to trim it further, but couldn't convert.
Jared McCarron ended up hitting a three with six seconds left to make it 61-55 for Peabody, but Dunston made one free throw to close out the scoring.
"We made a few runs on them, but then is seemed like we would make a key turnover or we would miss a wide open shot," Broughton said. "We had our opportunities, but Salem also did a nice job of coming down and answering each time we made a run."
