GORHAM – Saturday night’s regular season finale between Mountain Valley and Gorham amounted to little more than a dress rehearsal for next week’s rematch in the Western Class B playoffs.

Fortunately for the Falcons, their defense will have a week to work on reading its cues and hitting its marks against Gorham’s head-spinning double-wing.

The Rams piled up 291 yards on the ground and sprinkled in a few big passing plays when they saw fit on their way to an impressive 50-20 win to secure home-field advantage for next week’s game.

“We’re not pleased with our performance,” said Mountain Valley coach Jim Aylward. “Gorham’s a good football team. They’re going to have to beat us again next week. That’s really the bottom line.”

The Falcons (6-2) probably wouldn’t mind carrying over a couple of things to next week – specifically, their opening offensive series of each half. After forcing Gorham to punt on its opening drive, the Falcons needed just four plays, all runs, to score on their first possession. Aaron Arsenault (10 carries, 65 yards) started the drive with a 43-yard scamper, then scored from seven yards out to give the Falcons a brief lead.

“We made some adjustments. We thought we had some guys that were taking the wrong read steps and were going to the wrong spots,” said Gorham coach Dave Kilborn. “After they scored, that was a great wakeup call for us.”

The Falcons also put together a solid 15 play, 71 yard scoring drive to open the second half, capped by a 4-yard TD run by Eric LePage (nine rushes, 50 yards).

It’s what happened after each of those drives that the Falcons will have to spend the next week correcting. Gorham (6-2) followed Mountain Valley’s first score with an 11 play, 65 yard drive and scored on a 10-yard run by Tyson Nason (15 carries, 96 yards, two TDs). Nason ran in the two-point conversion to put the Rams in front for good.

The Falcons failed to smother the ensuing kickoff, which Gorham recovered at the Mountain Valley 46. Two plays later, Andy Oldenburg (17 carries, 130 yards) rumbled up the middle from 41 yards out, then added the two-pointer, to make it 16-7.

“We’ve got to do a better job of taking their line out of their offense,” said Aylward. “We told our kids if you read your keyes and you stop worrying about finding the darned football, you’ll be a lot better off. In the first half, after one good defensive series, everything we worked on all week kind of got thrown out the window.”

Gorham widened the lead to 35-7 by halftime thanks to a 26 yard TD run by Nason, a 25 yard field goal by Kyle Griffin, and a 26 yard TD pass from Rob Tole to Matt Trask (three catches, 81 yards, two TDs).

Tole and Trask hooked up again for a 19 yard touchdown in the third quarter. Andrew Hutton added an 18-yard TD run for the Rams and Chris Smith finished the scoring for Mountain Valley with a 1-yard TD run.

“The biggest thing I was worried about was we had a heartbreaking (seven-point) loss to Wells last week and I wanted us to make sure we came out here and played hard and could do the little things right,” said Kilborn, who starts just one senior, center Jeremy Gagne. “Mountain Valley’s a very good football team. I’m not looking forward to next week at all. I think it’s going to be a battle.”

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