SOUTH PARIS – After Lawrence’s victory over Messalonskee Friday night, there was no amount of help that would have put the Bangor Rams into the playoffs, even if they closed out the regular season with a win on the road Saturday.
That didn’t stop the Rams from helping themselves to four Oxford Hills turnovers and playing spoiler against the playoff-bound Vikings with a 21-14 win.
“Our goal was to win our last game, and we were able to do that today,” said Bangor coach Mark Hackett. “We’re happy with the way our seniors led, coming down here and playing a great football team like this one.”
The loss drops the Vikings to the fourth seed in the Pine Tree Conference, sending Oxford Hills (5-3) to visit top-seeded Mt. Blue next Friday night.
“Turnovers are something that we haven’t had a problem with all season. They all seemed to come today,” said Vikings coach Bob Austin. “We’ve had a tendency all year of falling behind, and obviously we did that once too many times.”
Alex Gallant rushed for 142 yards and two touchdowns to pace the Rams on offense, and Bangor’s defense played well even without the Viking turnovers, bottling up senior halfback Jim Bower in the early going and stripping the ball from him twice.
The Rams drove the field and scored on their opening possession, an 11-play, 64-yard drive capped by Gallant’s 1-yard plunge. Oxford Hills fumbled the ball away on the third play of its first drive, and didn’t pick up a first down until the final minutes of the second quarter after Bangor had already done all of its scoring.
Sophomore quarterback Ian Edwards padded the Rams lead with a 17-yard scoring pass to Tom Crews with 5:28 remaining, freezing the defense with a pump fake to Gallant in the flat and finding Crews at the front of the end zone on fourth-and-8.
On the ensuing kickoff, the Vikings lost the football again deep in their own territory to set up a Gallant 25-yards scamper for another score and a 21-0 cushion
Quarterback Ben Ryerson found Ethan Sutton on a 39-yard fade route to get the Vikings on the board with 52.6 seconds remaining in the half. Bower added a 4-yard rush in the third quarter.
The Vikings will prepare to travel north to meet another team on the wrong end of an upset this weekend, the 7-1 Cougars.
“We’re a different football team than we were earlier in the season when we played Mt. Blue, but they are still the best team in our league,” said Austin. “If we can take care of our business on Friday night, we can show them what a different team we are.”
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