LEWISTON – Jared Turcotte was proud to dedicate his 229 yards rushing and three touchdowns to his best friend’s father, who suddenly passed away on Tuesday.
Turcotte knew his Lewiston teammate, Ryan Lagasse, couldn’t be at Friday night’s game against the Bangor Rams.
So he did the next best thing he could for a good friend, steering the Blue Devils to a 20-7 victory in an Eastern Class A football opener at Don Roux Field.
“Just thinking about Mr. (Robert) Lagasse, I did it all for him,” said Turcotte. “He was my fuel. I just ran as hard as I could. I think when I have the ball, I make things happen.”
No question about that.
Turcotte was invincible, breaking tackle after tackle, as he left the Rams stunned and Lewiston coach Bill County muttering that he is only a junior.
Turcotte carried the ball 27 times on the night. For the evening, Blue Devils rushed for a total of 322 yards on 46 carries.
“Jared is the full package,” said a beaming County. “He is a high honor student. He’s a legitimate athlete. A little bit of speed and a lot of power, and he’s only a junior.”
Turcotte set Lewiston’s offense in motion, scoring with two minutes, 12 seconds left in the first quarter on a 53-yard dash up the left side. Ethan Gagnon split the uprights and the Blue Devils held a 7-0 lead.
The Rams came right back eight seconds into the second quarter when quarterback Ian Edwards hurled a 50-yard pass to Tom Crews for a touchdown.
But Lewiston answered. The Blue Devils got the ball back on the 37-yard line and marched to the Bangor 14, where Turcotte took it into the end zone again with 8:33 left in the first half.
The Devils defense came up big late in the third quarter to maintain the edge, when an Edward’s pass was intercepted by Chris Ford in the end zone.
Later, on fourth-and-5 from the Bangor 43, County decided to throw caution to the wind. The hard-nosed Turcotte took the ball and raced up the field for 43-yard TD to ice it.
“We’ve got Mt. Blue and Skowhegan in the next two weeks, and it was absolutely imperative that we got off on the right foot,” said County.
The Blue Devils held Bangor to just 66 yards rushing.
“We made some mistakes,” said Bangor coach Mark Hackett. “I am not going to say we are young. I don’t buy into that. We did some good things. We would have been better to get them (Blue Devils) down the line.”
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