PEABODY – For the Peabody High football team, this loss was as painful as a kick to the gut, with steel boots.Ray Doucette threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to Justin Bernard with 44 seconds left to lift Cambridge Rindge & Latin to a 20-14 win over Peabody, Friday night, at Lee Field.The Tanners (0-2) led by six points with 7:50 left in the final quarter, but committed a key turnover that led to the Falcons’ (1-1) tying score, a 2-yard pass from Doucette to Jerome Rodriguez. Cambridge then marched 78 yards in seven plays in 2:32 to take the lead.”Probably for me, it ranks up there out of my 21 years as a coach as one of my most disappointing losses,” Peabody coach Scott Wlasuk said. “We had the game; we just let it slip away.”Cambridge’s other score came when Darren Thorton recovered a fumble in Peabody’s end zone in the second quarter. The Tanners answered with a pair of touchdown runs from Jonathan Balcacer to take a 14-8 lead at halftime.”They played tough,” Cambridge coach Joe Papagni said of Peabody. “They had us on the run, but there were some mistakes on both sides. With (Doucette), you just never know when it’s going to happen. You just wish it would happen a lot more often and a lot sooner.”The Tanners held Cambridge and Doucette to just four first downs in the opening three quarters and seemingly had control of the game when they forced the Falcons to punt with 9:40 left in the game. Four plays later, George Skelton pounced on a fumble at the Tanners’ 28. Doucette found Bernard for a 23-yard gain two plays later, but a personal foul penalty at the end of the play backed up the Falcons to the Peabody 23. Despite a sack by Kevin Bettencourt, Doucette hit Rodriguez over the middle to set up first-and-goal, and three plays later Doucette threw a 2-yard pass to Rodriguez in the back corner of the end zone.With an inexperienced sophomore at kicker, the Falcons opted to try for two, but Doucette’s hurried pass was incomplete and the game was tied, 14-14, with 4:54 to play.The Tanners went three-and-out, and Cambridge took over at its own 22-yard line with 3:18 to play. After a holding penalty, Thorton picked up 40 yards on a rumbling run down the right sideline. Two plays later, Doucette flipped the ball to Samir Eid for a 13-yard gain to put the ball at the Tanners’ 18.Doucette was tackled for a 2-yard loss on the next play, but then lobbed a perfect throw to Bernard just about five yards deep on the left side of the end zone. The try for two points failed.Peabody’s first play on the ensuing drive resulted in an interception by Thorton, and the Falcons killed the final 36 seconds of the game.”I told the kids that hard work pays off,” Papagni said. “This (win) was something we needed. It’s not just about wins and losses, it’s about character sometimes, and this is something the kids can hold on to.”After a scoreless first quarter, Peabody’s second drive of the second quarter started at its own 10-yard line. A deflected snap from the shotgun set ended up in the end zone, and Thorton fell on the ball. After an offside penalty, Cambridge went for two points and Doucette connected with Bernard to put the Falcons on top, 8-0.Peabody got its offense going on its next series, driving 63 yards in nine plays, with Balcacer scoring on a counter play from 13 yards out. The Tanners took the lead with 14 seconds left in the first half, using their timeouts judiciously to travel 53 yards in 43 seconds. Balcacer scored on almost the exact same play, an 11-yard run, and then he added a two-point conversion run.”We’ll be all right,” Wlasuk said. “The kids played hard, and overall we dominated the game. Ray Doucette is a great football player, but I thought our defense did a great job. There were a lot of blitzes, and for the most part, they worked.”