LEWISTON -Bill County had a pretty good grasp of what his Lewiston football team looked like on the outside.

One aspect of his Blue Devils he was unsure about, however, was what they were made of on the inside.

Friday night, County got a little peak at that makeup and liked what he saw. His Blue Devils rallied from an early deficit to beat Brunswick 24-13.

“I’ve known we had some good athletes,” County said. “I know we had a pretty good offseason. We have a lot of returners, but you want to find out the gut-check. You want to find out if we’re down by two touchdowns, do we have the ability to work hard and stay disciplined and stay with the game plan and come back to win? We may not be happy with the way it looks on the field. It was kind of ugly, but it ended up ugly in a good way.”

Lewiston trailed 13-2 early. The Blue Devils watched the Dragons torch their pass defense for 168 yards in the opening half. Lewiston made adjustments in the second half, and Brunswick’s passing game struggled. The Dragons managed just 86 yards passing and 47 on the ground in the entire second half, while Lewiston intercepted three passes.

“I think we kind of went with the bend-don’t-break principal in the secondary in the second half,” said County. “We gave up the short pass. You let them catch the short pass, and you make good tackles. You hope you’re eventually going to make the good play.”

Lewiston’s secondary tightened up, and its defensive line applied tremendous pressure. Brunswick quarterback Robbie Basquez made some sparkling plays with his scrambling ability, but there were less of those in the second half.

“They were playing deep on us, and we just couldn’t complete the short ones,” Brunswick coach Dan Cooper said. “The kids want to throw deep a lot, and they took that away.”

Lewiston’s defense allowed its offense to find consistency in the second half. Trailing 13-10 at halftime, Lewiston took the lead for good when Wesley Myers broke a couple of tackles for a 25-yard run. Myers finished with 177 yards on 25 carries.

“It all came down to my line,” Myers said. “It really wasn’t me. My line blocked, and that’s what I like to see.”

Letourneau padded the lead in the fourth when his blocking cleared a path for a 4-yard run. He finished with 53 yards on 21 carries.

An 80-yard pass play by Basquez to Conner Breiscacher and a safety accounted for an early 7-2 lead. Brunswick made it 13-2 on a Basquez run from the 5 in the second quarter.

A late Lewiston touchdown in the second quarter helped set up the Blue Devils’ comeback.

“That was really big because we needed it,” said Myers. “We were down and we had to score.”

Mason Giroux connected with Alex Lafreniere on a 4-yard pass play with 13 second left in the half. Then, he hit Letourneau on the same play for the conversion. Letourneau had fallen down, but made the catch anyway.

“I think the touchdown just before halftime was enormous,” said County. “We decided to run that little play-action pass out of the backfield. The kid made a great catch, and I thought Matt Letourneau’s extra-point catch was extraordinary.”


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