WALES – You’d think that the Fryeburg Academy Raiders had won the Class B state title.

The fact that they won at all on Saturday was enough to stun the vocal Oak Hill crowd into silence and will no doubt cause some readers whiplash this morning.

With a skeleton of a team whose off-white jerseys did little to contrast against the ominous gray sky, and whose base of fans did little to fill the one set of cold metal bleachers at the far end of the field, Fryeburg Academy beat the odds, and a good football team, downing Oak Hill 20-19 in Class B football action.

“This just feels so great,” said Fryeburg running back Nate Broyer. “In my senior season, this is just our third win since I’ve been here. I don’t care about much else right now.”

Broyer is the biggest reason Fryeburg won the game at all.

His 138 return yards were more than the entire offense mustered up all day, and his 74 receiving yards were more than half of the team’s offensive output. Add to that a key fumble recovery while playing defense in the third quarter and two touchdowns, and it is safe to say Broyer had a good day.

“Put him on a well-known powerhouse team and he is easily recognized as one of the best players in the state,” said Fryeburg coach Jim Thurston. “When he plays well, we play well.”

The biggest play of the day for either team came late in the fourth quarter. Oak Hill’s Josh Jillson had just launched a 36-yard punt down to the Fryeburg 26-yard line, and with 2:32 left on the game clock the host Raiders held a 19-12 lead.

“We hadn’t had much luck on the ground today,” said Thurston. “We knew we’d have to get it done in the air.”

“They ran a slant on us,” said Oak Hill coach Phil Prideaux. “They ran an inside slant and beat us. It’s that simple.”

The “simple” inside slant was a pass up the middle from Finn Chappell to Broyer, who caught the ball 10 yards ahead of the line of scrimmage and scampered for 60 more, scoring on a 74-yard pass play with 2:20 left on the clock.

“We don’t kick unless we can make 10 in a row against just air,” said Thurston. “We knew we had to go for two there, and we ran the same play we did earlier that failed. We knew that if we ran it again and picked up the block that we had missed, we’d be O.K.”

As scripted, fullback Patrick Tweedie went unchecked outside to the right, and Chappell found him for the two-point conversion, putting Fryeburg up by one.

On the ensuing drive, Oak Hill quarterback Gabe Fontaine found fullback Eric Daniels up the middle for what would have been first-down yardage on fourth down, but Daniels coughed up the ball and Fryeburg’s Kyle Barker fell on the ball, sealing the team’s third win in four years.

“After such an emotional win last week against Leavitt at their homecoming, this team was prime for a letdown,” said Prideaux. “That’s exactly what happened.”

Things started well for Oak Hill (2-3) when Fontaine scampered up the middle for a score at 6:50 of the first quarter, putting his team up 7-0 after the extra point was good.

Broyer took the ensuing kickoff the distance, scampering 86 yards straight up the middle to dampen Oak Hill’s celebration.

In the second quarter, Oak Hill again stretched the lead when Troy Janelle took the ball in from one yard out, but Tweedie blocked the extra point. After a 52-yard return by Broyer, Fryeburg (1-4) scrounged up 33 yards of rushing offense and again pulled to within one at 13-12.

Wally Rines caught a 20-yard toss from Fontaine after a Fryeburg defender slipped on the wet grass to again stretch the lead to seven before the teams traded possessions and Broyer eventually won the game with his 74-yard catch and run.