Leavitt wins first Eastern B crown

Leavitt cheerleader Olivia Dam celebrates with Isaiah Wright following the Hornets' 13-0 win over Gardiner on Saturday.

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- Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

Leavitt High School's Tyson Nichols (32) and his teammates celebrate their 13-0 win over Gardiner on Saturday.

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- Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

TURNER — Josh Strickland's 61 carries the last two weeks suggest he is Leavitt's workhorse.

The senior tailback's touchdown runs of 11 and 33 yards in Saturday's Pine Tree Conference Class B championship are evidence that he is more like a sleek racehorse. His all-around performance against Gardiner, however, confirmed one thing:

Josh Strickland is a mudder.

Strickland rushed for 242 yards and both of the game's touchdowns on 34 carries to lead the Hornets to a 13-0 victory on a drizzly afternoon. 

Leavitt (11-0) won its first Eastern Class B championship in school history and its third regional title overall. The Hornets will take on Western B champion Cape Elizabeth next Saturday at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland in search of its third state crown and first since 1998.

"It feels like a dream," said Strickland, who accounted for all but 54 of Leavitt's total yardage. "We've been dreaming about this since second grade."

"It's surreal. I still can't even believe it," said senior two-way lineman Matt Pellerin, who helped pave the way for Strickland at right tackle. "It's going take the whole weekend to settle in."

The top-seeded Hornets overcame five turnovers, four in the second half, thanks to a stout defense that gave up yardage in big chunks early, then dug in and harassed Gardiner QB Forrest Chadwick and held Gardiner (8-3) to 122 total yards.

Six of Chadwick's 13 carries went for negative yardage. While he was able to break free of the pocket and rip off runs of 10 yards or more four times, the second wave of defenders limited the damage. Chadwick finished with 21 net yards.

Yet the Hornets were still in a precarious position in the second half. Protecting a 7-0 lead, they had the ball in Gardiner territory on each of their first four possessions of the third quarter. All four times, they fumbled, twice in the red zone.

"A couple of times, we outcoached ourselves and tried to get a little too fancy," Leavitt coach Mike Hathaway said. "The best thing that we could do was give it to Josh and let him run downhill and once in awhile run the counter off that with Eric (Theiss)."

Gardiner helped by fumbling the slippery pigskin back after one of the turnovers, but most of the dirty work was done by Leavitt's defense. The Hornets stuffed Alonzo Connor on 4th-and-3 near midfield, then halted an early fourth quarter drive at its own 33.

Having dodged another bullet, Leavitt decided it was time to turn the game over to Strickland with 10:21 remaining. His 21-yard run on 3rd-and-17 kept the drive alive and showed what kind of faith Hathaway placed in his running back and his defense.

"We were debating whether to throw it or just give it to Josh," Hathaway said. "We knew (if they didn't convert on third down) our defense would get it done. Give the ball to Josh and if we have to punt and play 'D,' they'll defend the field.

Four plays later, Strickland rolled around the left side, bounced off a tackler at the line of scrimmage, then stiff-armed another Tiger while tightroping down the sideline for the championship-clinching touchdown with 6:13 remaining. Lucas Witham's interception on Gardiner's next play from scrimmage provided the exclamation point.

"I know I say it every week but our line, they're chutes over there. They work so hard," Strickland said. "Our team isn't just one good player that teams can key on."

"Strickland is a beast," Pellerin said. "He's gonna run the ball like nobody at Leavitt has ever done."

For the first quarter, Gardiner ran the ball like few thought it could against a Leavitt defense that had shut them out, 36-0 (minus Chadwick), three weeks ago. Hoping to eat up clock with the ground game, the Tigers spread their offensive line out. That opened a big gap in the middle of the Leavitt defense for Connor (23 carries, 62 yards) and company to run through.

But the Tigers' opening drive stalled at the Leavitt 22 on a Cam Griffin sack, and their second drive fizzled at the Leavitt 26 when Mat Porter and Luke Wiley swallowed up Chadwick for a short gain on 4th-and-7.

"We didn't finish drives, and that was the key," Gardiner coach Jim Palmer said. "We moved the ball 60 yards twice, and if you don't put it in the end zone, and if you force some turnovers and you don't put up points off of that, then you don't leave yourself a good chance to win.

"They came out strong, and we knew that we had to stop it," Pellerin said. "It took a quarter, but we got it done. We dug our cleats into the mud and went to work." 

Once the Hornets plugged up the middle, running outside wasn't a viable alternative for Gardiner. Defensive ends Griffin, Buck Bochtler and Zach Frost defeated their blocks consistently on the outside and not only set the edge, but sealed it.

"We knew our defensive ends were going to have to play well," Hathaway said. "Griffin was a little banged-up, so we were rotating him and Bochtler and they were doing a solid job. But Frosty was just lights out today. Everything that came his way, he was eating it up."

Strickland started eating up yards immediately after the Hornets halted another promising Gardiner drive in the second quarter. After a 59-yard punt by Chadwick pinned Leavitt back to its own 11, Strickland busted a 48-yard run, his longest of the day, to get the Hornets into Tiger territory for the first time. After the Hornets recovered a fumble at the Gardiner 11, Strickland raced up the middle untouched to make it 7-0 with 4:17 left in the first half.