By Kalle Oakes,Staff Writer

FARMINGTON – Jared Turcotte left Mt. Blue bedeviled, bewildered, bedraggled, bruised and blurry-eyed from trying to tackle him all Friday night.

The idea of Lewiston’s ridiculously talented junior standing as a decoy while somebody else bootlegged the two-point conversion that could have given the Blue Devils a win for the ages was so preposterous that it was brilliant.

We’ll never know if it would have worked.

Lewiston muffed the fateful snap, and Matt Burnham buried quarterback Chris Ford a dozen yards behind the line of scrimmage. Thus essentially ended one of the greatest regular-season football games in the proud history of the Pine Tree Conference, with the Cougars clinging by a fingernail to a 35-34 victory at Caldwell Field.

“I think we were going to score, too. Chris was going to fake to Jared and run it in. There wasn’t anybody in the place,” said Lewiston coach Bill County, “who didn’t think Jared was going to get the ball.”

What gave it away?

Maybe it was Turcotte’s 37 carries for 347 yards and touchdown runs of 26, 84, 4, 29 and 2 yards. The 6-foot-1, 215-pound junior’s last plunge, with 2:39 remaining, capped a five-minute, 61-yard march after Jered Phillipon’s fumble recovery.

Yes, gas is roughly three bucks a gallon. Still, even if the price of petrol soars to four or five dollars, if you call yourself a Lewiston High supporter and don’t avail yourself of every opportunity to watch Turcotte in-person the next two years, shame on you.

“He runs just like Jeremy Tardiff,” said Mt. Blue coach Gary Parlin, invoking the name of Oxford Hills’ Fitzpatrick Trophy winner of the early 1990s. “With that speed and that stiff-arm? It’s unbelievable. I think he went for about seven touchdowns in a freshman game here two years ago. He wasn’t wearing down tonight, either.”

Let’s not forget it was the Cougars who walked off the field sharing the summit in Eastern Class A at 2-0 when this track meet was over. Mt. Blue never trailed after Hal Robbins ran back the opening kickoff 85 yards for a touchdown.

The Cougars blended together enough magnificence and miscues to make it fascinating. Senior quarterback Mason Barker rushed for two touchdowns and rolled up 161 total yards on the ground and in the air. Mike Toothaker and Jeff Davis, sharing the load as injured tailback Hazen Pingree’s two-headed substitute for a few weeks, at least, combined for 138 yards and two scores.

Four lost Mt. Blue fumbles, however, probably doubled Turcotte’s opportunities to torch the secondary.

“If we don’t turn the ball over so much, we’re not in that situation at the end,” Parlin said.

Lewiston’s early troubles worsened when Alex Johnson, Justin Lowe and Eric Gilbert stuffed Ford on a bold call to go for it on fourth-and-1 from the Devils’ 31.

Five plays later, Barker rolled left and followed Matt Burnham’s block to an 11-yard score. John Moloney kicked the second of his five extra points for a 14-0 Cougars lead.

Turcotte broke five tackles on a 26-yard score to start the second quarter. Hard running by Davis keyed a 10-play, 80-yard drive for the Cougars in response, and Mt. Blue went in at the half with a 21-7 edge.

The Devils scored on four of their five possessions in the second half. Not to be upstaged, Barker’s 26-yard pass to Moloney on the first play of the fourth quarter set up a Toothaker TD rush to put the hosts on top 35-21 and seemingly push Lewiston out of reach.

Not this Lewiston team. Not with Turcotte.

“People looked at last year and expected us to be a pushover this year,” said Turcotte, who also topped 200 yards and scored every TD in last week’s 20-7 win over Bangor. “It’s nice to gain that respect. But if we practiced as hard all week as we played tonight, we know we would have won this game, and that’s tough to swallow.”