BANGOR – Lewiston coach Bill County doesn’t think five touchdowns actually separate his football team from the one the Blue Devils lost to Friday night, the Bangor Rams.

County may be right. But Bangor running back/punt returner Mike Prentiss is all the Rams needed to separate themselves from Lewiston and advance to the Pine Tree Conference semifinals.

Prentiss rushed for 138 yards and three touchdowns and added a 46-yard punt return for a touchdown as top-seeded Bangor beat No. 8 Lewiston, 41-7, before an atypically small crowd at Cameron Stadium on Halloween.

Tyler Heber added 91 yards and two TDs rushing for the Rams (8-1), who will host No. 4 Mt. Blue next week in the semifinals.

“I feel like we had a game plan where we could have attacked a couple of things that we had some confidence in, but we just made too many mental mistakes,” County said. “Obviously, they’re a good football team. I didn’t think they were 34 points better than we were. The mistakes killed us, and that’s kind of been our downfall most of the year.”

Lewiston’s first mistake was kicking to Prentiss.

The Blue Devils (3-6) seemed to gain a big momentum push midway through the first quarter only to have the game shift quickly. After a 25-yard Bangor field goal was disallowed due to a dead-ball penalty on Lewiston (the game’s only accepted penalty), defensive tackle Nick Lajoie stopped Prentiss behind the line of scrimmage on a fourth-and-one run at the Blue Devil 4.

Bangor held the Blue Devils to three-and-out on the subsequent series and was forced to punt. Prentiss fielded Brandon LeClair’s kick on about the third hop, then raced down the right side 46 yards and into the end zone to put Bangor on the board first.

“I saw it bounce and then I picked it up and I saw the hole to the right with a few blockers down there and I hit the hole,” Prentiss said.

“They have a reputation here of being great on special teams and that hurt us,” County said. “We took the points off the board on the field goal but to cough it up on the punt return was tough.”

Bangor doubled the lead later in the quarter after QB Shaun Sullivan (5-12, 110 yards) found a wide open Matt Cassidy on a 42-yard pass play that advanced the Rams to the 2-yard line. Prentiss dove in from there to make it 14-0.

Lewiston’s offense, meanwhile, only got one big play all night from it’s bread-and-butter, the running game, and even that required a little luck. QB Chris Ford scooped up a fumble by running back James Spaulding at the Bangor 46, ran it down the left sideline, broke a couple of tackles inside the 10, and scored to cut the Bangor lead in half just over a minute into the second quarter.

Bangor held the Blue Devils to just two first downs in the first half and kept Spaulding (23 carries, 71 yards) from breaking any runs for longer than 12 yards.

“That’s our defensive front,” Bangor coach Mark Hackett said. “The backers always play well and the ends contain real well and the secondary tackled pretty well tonight. I just thought we were a little stronger up front defensively.”

Lewiston was also doing a good job keeping Prentiss’ big gains to a minimum until the senior tailback took a handoff from Sullivan on a third-and-10 draw play, cut right and ran it in for a 22-yard touchdown that gave the Rams a 21-7 going into halftime.

“For awhile there, I thought we did a nice job on (Prentiss),” County said. “Unfortunately, it was pretty typical of what we’ve done all year — playing the run fairly well and forcing them into fourth-and-long situations, and then we gave up some big plays.”

“Lewiston’s as physical as any team we play and they have been ever since I’ve been here,” Hackett said. “They’re tough and they have a lot of pride and they’re not going to let one guy beat them. Mike just kept his demeanor and kept working hard and got a few big runs finally.”

Bangor also benefited from a second big pass play from Sullivan to Cassidy, this one a 30-yard strike on third down that kept their fourth scoring drive alive. Prentiss followed that up on the next play with a 13-yard TD run that made it 28-7 early in the third quarter.

Heber added touchdown runs of seven yards and one yard to cap the scoring.

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