FREEPORT — For the first 32 minutes, winless Telstar looked like it had sprung a trap on unbeaten Freeport at Pownal Road Athletic Field.

Freeport turned the tables in the final 16 minutes.

The Falcons chewed up 401 yards on the ground and scored five unanswered touchdowns in the second half to improve to 3-0 with a 47-13 victory.

“We decided to stop making mistakes and start playing some football,” Freeport coach Rob Grover said.

Freeport used trap plays to open large swaths in Telstar’s defense for Luke Lamagna (13 carries, 118 yards, 2 TDs), Dan Burke (11 carries, 107 yards, TD) and Joe Nixon (3 carries, 64 yards, 2 TDs).

“That trap play has been a good play for us all year,” Grover said. “The key is the trap blocking down and a good fake by the quarterback.”

Telstar showed good balance offensively in taking a 13-12 lead in the third quarter. But the Rebels (0-3) didn’t take advantage of a number of scoring chances that could have put the Falcons in a bigger hole.

The last missed opportunity irrevocably shifted momentum Freeport’s way in the third quarter. Protecting their one-point lead, the Rebels’ Drew Wilson picked off a James Purdy pass and returned it to the Falcon 43. Telstar drove to the 6, but Nixon picked off Dom Haines in the flat and ran it back to the 33.

A 41-yard run by Lamagna set up the go-ahead score, a three-yard run by Nixon, who added the two-point conversion to make it 20-13 and open the floodgates with 3:06 left in the third quarter.

Touchdown runs by Lamagna, Burke, Ben MacMillan (60 yards) and Nixon (47 yards) settled the score.

“We made some adjustments defensively on that trap, but they didn’t work,” Telstar coach Dan O’Connor said.

Led by senior defensive end Kaleb Farmer, the Freeport defense turned aside four Rebel forays into Falcon territory in the first half. That included a goal-line stand in the first quarter where they stacked up Haines at the 1 yard line on a 4th and goal sneak.

“We’re a young team and we made some young team mistakes, especially in the second half,” O’Connor said. “In the first half, we had a chance to punch another one in, and momentum-wise, that would have been huge.”

Freeport broke the scoreless tie on Purdy’s only completion of the first half, a 49-yard TD pass to Chris Farley with 3:01 left in the first half.

Telstar answered with a 31-yard pass that Haines dropped over a pair of defenders to Wilson on a post pattern. The PAT by Will Lyman gave the Rebels a 7-6 edge at halftime.

The Falcons started the second half with a nine-play, 71-yard drive concluded by Lamagna’s six-yard TD run.

Nick Mills (16 carries, 67 yards) ran the Rebels’ first play of  the half 58 yards down the right sideline to quickly put them back in the lead. But Telstar’s offense went flat after that, due in part to injuries to Haines, backup QB Jared Vermett, Lyman and senior lineman Kenny Haas.

Freeport has a showdown with fellow unbeaten Lisbon next Saturday. Telstar hosts Oak Hill, which won its first game Saturday.

“If you look at the first half of this game, if we can take that and play for four quarters like that, I think there’s a possibility of us coming out with a win at some point,” O’Connor said.