FARMINGTON – Aside from Mt. Blue’s opponent, normalcy returned to the Cougars’ camp this week.

Six days after an overtime road loss at Waterville, the Cougars, ranked No. 10 in the Sun Journal poll, were authoritative in every facet of a 41-0 Class A crossover victory Friday night over Westbrook.

“We know what a loss feels like now, and we don’t want to let it happen again,” said senior running back Lance Meader, who rushed for a game-high 146 yards and two touchdowns.

Four other Cougars found the end zone. In addition to Meader’s scores of 37 and 13 yards, Derek Taber slashed up the middle for a 33-yard TD to give Mt. Blue (1-1) a 21-0 halftime lead.

Mt. Blue also scored on its first two possessions of the third quarter. Garrett Lake tossed a 15-yard TD strike to Jake Hardy, and Jordan Stevens turned in a near duplicate of Taber’s scoring jaunt from 40 yards out.

Senior Russell Hoyt provided the exclamation point with a 3-yard rush in the final minute.

Defensively, the Cougars sacked three Westbrook quarterbacks six times and forced five turnovers in similarly balanced fashion. Joe Starbird made two diving interceptions to lead the way.

“The best thing about this is that as coaches, we didn’t have to do much to get these guys ready,” said Mt. Blue head coach Gary Parlin. “We used to give out star awards on the helmets every week. The seniors asked us to do only team awards this year. They want to make sure everyone gets the credit.”

With 20 seniors among more than two dozen players seeing regular playing time for the Cougars, that isn’t a difficult goal.

“The defense and offensive line stepped it up. Everybody had an effect on this,” said Meader.

Mt. Blue held Westbrook (1-1) to seven yards in the second half, including a net minus-9 on the ground. Overall, the Cougars outgained the Blue Blazes 380 to 93. Todd Thompson led Westbrook with 30 yards on seven carries.

Things were different for the Blazes last week, as well, when they downed Scarborough in Mike Landry’s ballyhooed debut as head coach. Westbrook is the lone Western Class A opponent this season for Mt. Blue of the Pine Tree Conference.

The Cougars swept a two-game series from Westbrook when the programs last faced each other in 1995-96.

“We’ve seen them three times (after scouting two exhibition games), and they’re a much better team than maybe they showed tonight,” Parlin said.

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