By Randy Whitehouse,Staff Writer

Some of the games have been close. Some of them haven’t.

The list of Class A state championship contests in the 18 years since Mt. Blue became the first team to represent the newly-formed Eastern Class A features nail-biters and yawners and everything in between. Teams have won (or lost) championships in 16 different ways.

But only once has a member of the Pine Tree Conference held the gold football at the end.

Western Maine teams are 17-1 in the biggest game of the year. The only dissenters have been the 2001 Bangor Rams, 20-14 winners over a heavily favored Portland team that would come back a year later and, still mostly intact, take out its frustrations on Edward Little and start a new three-game winning string for the SMAA.

Bonny Eagle went undefeated en route to extending that streak last year with a 29-19 win over Bangor, and they’re back again with a dozen of last year’s starters in tow. They include a bowling ball senior fullback, John Wiechman, who ran for 215 yards in that game. They’ve been through all of the distractions of the week leading up to the big game, but Scots coach Kevin Cooper doesn’t think his team will have an advantage at kickoff.

“Last year some people said Bangor had been there before and that was an edge for them,” he said. “We didn’t buy into that last year and we aren’t buying into experience giving us an edge this year.

The 9-2 Scots present a formidable challenge for a 9-1 Mt. Blue squad that has been basking in the glow of its first conference title sine 1987. But they’re not an entirely unfamiliar foe.

Both teams are quick and physical and operate their offense out of the shotgun. Both averaged over 30 points per game and went about getting those points in the same way – spreading out defenses, putting their quarterbacks in motion, and puncturing the stretched-out D’ with tough inside running.

“They use more formations than us, and they’re a little bit more multiple on defense. They give you a lot of different looks,” Parlin said. “They’ll show you a lot of formations and run the same plays out of them.”

Senior quarterback Mike O’Donnell, who is the younger brother last year’s QB, Fitzpatrick Trophy finalist Matt, is a double threat out of the shotgun. The Cougars face a similar kind of player every day in practice, their own Mason Barker. The 5-foot-9 Wiechman (1,605 yards, 20 TDs) is tough to bring down, though Parlin thinks the Cougars will know how to attack him, too.

“We’ve probably faced more good running backs this year than we have in a long time, with (Skowhegan’s) Aaron Chambers and (Lewiston’s) Jared Turcotte. (Oxford Hills’) Jim Bower is probably the closest type of runner to him. You have to get him low,” he said.

O’Donnell’s improvement passing the ball made the Scots’ offense more well-rounded as the season wound down. Junior wide receiver Ben Delcourt has caught three touchdown passes in the playoffs, and junior tight end Anthony Atkins is a big target in short-yardage situations.

Mt. Blue counters with a defense that opponents such as Skowhegan and Oxford Hills have shown can be run on, but one that also gets tougher in the red zone. Linebacker Justin Lowe became the school’s all-time single-season tackling leader last week with 172 tackles on the season, and makes it tough to get a lot of yardage inside. It also helps that Mt. Blue usually has the upper-hand in field position thanks to kicker/punter John Moloney’s deep kicks (42 yards per punt).

Barker (1,156 yards and nine TDs passing, 491 and seven rushing), a senior, leads a Mt. Blue offense that hasn’t been held under three touchdowns all year. The “Cougar Gun” has always been known for its quick-strike capability, and Barker will throw deep to receivers Moloney (27 catches, 385 yards, three TDs) and Arthur Trask (24-337-2).

But like the Scots, the Cougars want to run the ball first behind one of the best offensive lines in the state, led by bookend tackles Eric Gilbert and Tom Robinson. Juniors Mike Toothaker (948 yards, 12 TDs) and Lowe are both tough inside runners, which is what Parlin wants to utilize against the Scots’ speedy defense.

“They’re very quick. You’ve got to run more right at them,” he said. “If we try to run everything wide and not make our cuts, they’re just going to push us out of bounds,” Parlin said.

The fact that they will make us defend both the run and pass will make it tough for us on defense,” said Cooper. “We have played very well on defense the past three weeks, but none of the teams we have beaten in the playoffs do both, run and pass, as well as Mt. Blue.”