AUGUSTA – One score late in the first half was pretty good as far as the Mt. Blue football team was concerned, but two was even better.

The Cougars struck twice in the final two minutes and 48 seconds to break a 0-0 tie. Mt. Blue rode the sudden momentum and a 13-0 lead into the half. From there, the Cougars never looked back, breaking things wide open in the second half for a convincing 35-0 win over Cony in a Class A football game.

Mt. Blue (4-1) totalled 403 yards overall, grinding out 310 on the ground. Jordan Stevens led the charge with 96 yards on 16 carries and three touchdowns. Quarterback Mason Barker rushed for 83 yards on seven tries. He also threw for 93 yards and had two touchdown passes.

“It’s a fun team to coach because you have a lot of options,” said Mt. Blue coach Gary Parlin.

The Rams gave Mt. Blue all it could handle early on. Cony’s shotgun offense caught the Cougars by surprise, but when Mt. Blue settled in and got its offense rolling, there wasn’t much stopping the Cougars.

Mt. Blue scored with 2:48 left in the first half when Stevens finished off a drive with a five-yard run.

“When our line gets off the ball with Jordan Stevens running behind it, that’s a tough combination,” said Parlin.

Cony (2-3) tried to answer but fumbled the ball away on the Mt. Blue 22. The Cougars turned right around and moved the other way.

Barker connected with David DiGravio on a 47-yard strike. Then he hooked up with John Moloney in the end zone. Moloney battled through contact with a Cony defender. A flag had been thrown, but despite being knocked to the ground, the ball deflected off the Ram defender and landed in Moloney’s arms.

“It was 0-0 at the quarter, and we’re hanging in,” said Cony coach Tom Hinds. “We’re playing with them. It was 7-0 at the end of the half, maybe. Then with (57 seconds), there’s a great defensive play, in our opinion, and he knocks it down and it pops up for the guy in the end zone for a touchdown. That hurt a little bit.”

The Rams were still within two scores, but Mt. Blue ended any comeback hopes. On the Cougars’ second possession of the half, Stevens burst up the middle for a 44-yard scoring run in the third quarter. Then in the fourth, a short swing pass for Stevens became an 18-yard scoring play with 11:16 left in the fourth. DiGravio scored on a five-yard run with 9:58 left.

Cony’s offense churned out 304 yards of its own, including 171 through the air. The Rams could only answer Mt. Blue’s scores with turnovers. Cony fumbled the ball away four times and had three interceptions.

“We hung in as long as we could,” said Hinds. “We tried to match them. We just tried to hold down the fort some. We played pretty tough, but in the second half, you can’t play Mt. Blue with all those turnovers.”