LEWISTON – The Oxford Hills defense had a plan to contain Jared Turcotte and the Lewiston Blue Devils, and they took their cue from the waves of rain that have been pelting the region recently.
The Vikings defense swarmed Turcotte and the offense held on to the ball better than the Blue Devils to pull out a big 19-7 Pine Tree Conference win Friday night, their fourth victory in a row.
“Coach Bick (Paul Bickford) had a great defensive game plan and the kids carried it out,” head coach Bob Austin said. “That’s the way you have to tackle (Turcotte). He’s a great running back.”
The Vikings (4-2) have an all-state caliber tailback of their own in Jim Bower, whose 53-yard TD run late in the fourth quarter put the game away. Brower finished with 142 yards on 23 carries, while Turcotte compiled 183 yards and a touchdown on 38 rushes.
Alex Waite added two key field goals for the Vikings. The first, a 27-yarder, put them up for good at halftime. The second, a 20-yarder, came in less-than-ideal kicking conditions as the rain intensified at Don Roux Field.
“We wanted to get the lead at halftime, and then the second one put us up a touchdown. We’ve got a good kicker and we used him,” Austin said.
Lewiston (3-3) marched to midfield or crossed into Viking territory on five of its six second-half possessions, but the Devils lost starting QB Franklin Sawyer to a concussion late in the first quarter and had to replace him with their third-string QB Mason Giroux, as first-stringer Chris Ford is still out nursing a knee injury.
The Devils fumbled the ball eight times, at least half of those on bobbled snaps. And while they turned it over on just two of those fumbles, the miscues hurt their momentum on a couple of those second half drives.
“Once Frank Sawyer went down, we were down to our No. 3 quarterback, a young kid who I think is a real good quarterback, but he had a hard time taking the snap – and then it got wet,” Lewiston coach Bill County said. “It was hard to sustain a drive because even though we were getting three or four yards a carry, we were missing a carry in every series because of a slip or a fumble.”
The biggest bobbled snap may have come on a Lewiston punt attempt early in the third quarter. It led to a 22-yard loss and set up the Vikings at the Lewiston 30. Penalties pushed them back near midfield, but Ben Ryerson threw a 30-yard completion to Ethan Sutton on second down to move the chains and eventually get Waite close enough for his 20-yard kick that made it 13-7.
Outside of a 42-yard run in the second quarter, Oxford Hills kept Turcotte in front of them, often reaching the tailback in waves of two, three or four tacklers. Junior linebacker Logan Cromwell made the best one-on-one tackle of the night to keep Turcotte from turning the corner on a fourth-and-3 run near midfield and force a turnover on downs with 1:39 left.
Bower took the handoff on the Vikings’ next play and powered through a couple of would-be tacklers on his way to the game-clinching 53-yard score.
The Blue Devils had little trouble moving the ball early, converting on their first five third downs and taking a 7-0 lead on a seven-yard run by Turcotte. Their sixth third down attempt came after Sawyer got hurt and served as an omen, though, as Justin Desrosier recovered a fumble at his own 16 to thwart Lewiston’s second drive deep into Viking territory.
Ryerson converted the turnover into points and tied the game with a nice 16-yard TD run with 9:30 left in the second quarter.
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