SKOWHEGAN – Fans didn’t know it at the time, but any hopes of Friday’s Pine Tree Conference finale between Mt. Blue and Skowhegan being a low-scoring affair went out the window with the opening kickoff.

Mt. Blue’s Hal Robbins returned the kickoff 80 yards for a touchdown and opened the floodgates on the PTC’s biggest shoot-out of the year, a 48-32 Cougar victory.

Hazen Pingree and Jordan Stevens rushed for two TDs apiece as Mt. Blue (7-1) clinched at least one home game in the PTC playoffs.

The two teams combined for seven turnovers and over 700 yards in total offense. Neither team had much luck stopping the other, especially on the ground.

“Both defenses, the last four or five games, have played real well,” said Mt. Blue coach Gary Parlin, whose team had only surrendered 35 points all season going into Friday’s game. “They held a good Brunswick football team down to seven points last week. This is one of the weeks you throw the film out.”

Skowhegan (3-5) will want to throw the special teams film out after giving up the kickoff touchdown, fumbling two punts and having a third blocked.

“We committed way too many turnovers to be in the game, so I was proud of our kids coming back,” said Skowhegan coach Mike Marston. “We had a couple of breakdowns on special teams tonight, no question about that.”

The first Indians fumble, recovered by David DiGravio at Skowhegan’s 48, set up Mt. Blue’s second score, a four-yard run by Stevens to give the Cougars a 12-0 lead just seven minutes into the game. Pingree made it 20-0 with the game still in the first quarter on a 48-yard run.

The Indians slowly made a game of it again, though their defense didn’t exactly help. QB Mike Lacasse scored from a yard out early in the second quarter to make it 20-6. Mt. Blue then cut through the Indians for 63 yards on just six plays, punctuated by Stevens’ seven yard TD run that made it 27-6.

After the Indians Jason Lisherness made it a two touchdown game again with a seven-yard TD of his own, the Cougars responded with Mason Barker’s 52-yard touchdown pass to John Moloney that allowed them to take a 34-12 game at the half.

Skowhegan’s second fumbled punt set up Mt. Blue’s next TD, a two-yard run by Pingree, and the Cougars looked poised to put the game away. But the Indians scored on their next two possessions on TD runs by Lisherness and Aron Chambers (243 yards rushing) to whittle the deficit back to 15, 41-26, heading into the fourth quarter.

Mt. Blue needed another big play to stem Skowhegan’s comeback attempt and got it when Barker made a nice fake reverse hand-off and ran around the left side 45 yards for a touchdown that made gave the Cougars a 48-26 cushion with 10 minutes left.

“Our plan was to not run him much tonight because he is a little banged up, but at halftime he said I feel great coach. Let me run the football,'” Parlin said.