AUBURN – With all of the scoring opportunities both teams had, Friday night’s Pine Tree Conference clash between Gardiner and Edward Little could have been a full-fledged shootout.

It actually ended up a 14-0 Gardiner win, with the Tigers walking off Walton Field breathing a huge sigh of relief.

Gardiner (4-1) scored two first quarter touchdowns, then held on for dear life, thwarting EL (1-4) four times in the red zone to secure the shutout.

“I don’t know how many times we’re going to score two touchdowns and get satisfied before it ends up killing us,” said senior running back Tom Colby. “Fourteen points ain’t nothin’. The defense is what’s keeping us in games.”

Colby did his part, rushing for 161 yards and a touchdown on 29 carries to lead a ball-control offense that accounted for 20 first downs on the night.

One of those first downs came on a fake punt on the game’s first series. Colby took the direct snap, handed the ball to Kerry Ramsay on a reverse and Ramsay took it 19 yards to the Eddies’ 14. Three plays later, QB Kyle Stilphen pounded it in from the two to make it 6-0.

“We felt like we needed to get on top first,” said Gardiner coach Matt Brown, explaining the fake punt. “We felt we were a better football team than EL, but not that much better.”

“The first drive, with the fake punt, that hurt us. We had them stopped there,” said EL coach Jim Hersom.

After EL went three-and-out, the Tigers enjoyed good field position to start their second series – the EL 48. Three plays in, Colby ran it up the middle on a trap play and thundered 25 yards to paydirt to make it a two touchdown game just under nine minutes in.

EL’s offense sputtered in the early going until Nate Chantrill laid a big block to spring Jon Demers on a 31-yard punt return that set the Eddies up at Gardiner’s 34 early in the second quarter. They drove down to the seven, where on fourth-and-six, QB Steve Simpson hit Robie Leighton in the right flank, but the Tigers stopped Leighton just a yard shy of the first down marker, at the two.

EL appeared to get a reprieve three plays later when Chantrill recovered a Stilphen fumble at Gardiner’s 14, but the Eddies gave the ball right back on their first play when Sean McNally’s hit from behind jarred the ball loose and Matt Holman recovered for the Tigers at their four.

Gardiner squandered a chance to widen the lead going into halftime when the Eddies’ Nick LeBlanc recovered a fumble that went into the end zone 20 seconds before intermission.

“They moved the ball on us some but the kids hit with them and stayed the course and I’m real proud of them,” Hersom said.

Unable to move the ball on the ground all night, the Eddies got their passing game going in the second half. Midway through the third quarter, Simpson (11-24, 212 yards) drove them down to the Gardiner 14. Two incompletions and two runs totaling just four yards stalled the drive, though.

But Gardiner’s next two drives petered out in the red zone, too, leaving EL hopeful of getting back into the game. Simpson connected with LeBlanc (four catches, 110 yards) on two long pass plays to get the Eddies down to the Tiger six, but Ramsay intercepted a throw into the end zone with 2:52 left to seal it.