A little belief goes a long way for Salem football

Steve Abraham was looking for a way to get his Salem High School football team to believe it could play the kind of defense to slow down Londonderry.

The Lancers went into last Friday's game averaging 37 points per game on offense, while the Blue Devils had struggled at times this season to get the opponent's offense off the field.

Abraham turned to a football team that played defense as well as any team at any level of the game for motivation.

"I showed them a little bit before the game, my favorite football team, the '85 Bears," the coach said. "I said 'look at how they fly around to the ball and they have fun.' You guys are trying to play perfect and you’re trying to play basketball. We have a lot of basketball players. Set a hard pick, it’s OK if you get a foul."

And if the Blue Devils (5-2) needed a little more motivation, Abraham should his complete confidence in the defense before the game, letting the team know that if it won the coin toss, he was going to give Londonderry the ball.

"We deferred and I told our guys everybody is probably thinking we need to score first on them and our defense stinks," he said. "I said I think we’re just learning and I believe in you. Let’s kick off to them, let’s get the ball back and let’s come right down and score."

It worked out just the way Abraham drew it up. Salem won the toss and deferred, with at least one spectator wondering why the Blue Devils decided to do that.

Londonderry (7-1) went three-and-out to start the game, gaining just 1 yard on its opening possession before punting the ball away. Starting at its own 22-yard line, Salem took just two plays to score, as Tommy Ahlers went 75 yards for a touchdown on the way to the 35-21 win.

"It was huge, getting that touchdown, it really gave us the momentum," Ahlers said. "It showed that we could score on them. Our goal was to play our hearts out, that was it."

While Salem's offense was rolling in the first half, putting up 246 yards and taking a 21-7 lead, it was the defense that turned in a full performance. The Blue Devils registered five interceptions against the Lancers, including three in the first half.

Ahlers had three of those picks, including two in the fourth quarter - one that set up his own 10-yard touchdown run and another he returned 42 yards for a pick-6.

"Our offense has been pretty good, but the main thing we worked on was our defense," Ahlers said. "We figured out what we needed to do and we got it done."

One of the biggest things Salem did was move Ahlers back to safety from the linebacker position he'd been playing all year.

"Ahlers is a great player," Abraham said. "He’s a good defensive player and we moved him back to safety. He’s been playing outside linebacker for us out of necessity. We moved Peter Beeley down there, who had a great game (Friday). Tommy’s sophomore year, he was all-conference at safety. We just put him back to where he’s the most comfortable."

Overall, Abraham has seen the defense, which was replacing a handful of players early in the year, get more comfortable as it's collectively gained experience.

"Our defensive line, we’ve got a fullback who has played fullback and linebacker his whole career who is playing defensive end," he said. "We’ve got juniors and sophomores who have never played varsity football and we’re putting them at defensive line, which is the hardest position to play.

"I said to our guys, give us time. We have a freshman middle linebacker (Danny Hughes). Our backup linebacker is our quarterback (Noah Mustapha) who never really played defense. We just were super young and green and we didn’t understand football techniques. We played great defense (against Londonderry)."

Salem will end its regular season with another test to its defense, as it hosts Merrimack on Friday. Despite the Tomahawks' 3-5 record, they've averaged more than 30 points per game this season.