WATERVILLE — If Waterville had a notion for Saturday night’s PTC Class B tilt to shorten the game and keep Leavitt’s explosive offense off the field,  it had to scrap those plans quickly.

Instead, it was Leavitt which shortened the game, at least in a competitive sense, by scoring on its first four possessions of the first half in a dominant 52-6 victory on a rainy and windy homecoming Saturday night.

The Hornets eclipsed the 50-point mark for the fourth straight game, led by Jordan Hersom’s 132 yards and  two touchdowns on 10 carries and Jake Ouellette’s 93 yards and three scores on 12 carries. Brian Bedard and Ian Durgin added the other two scores.

Waterville had the size advantage at the line of scrimmage in addition to two 215-pound running backs, J.T. Whitten and Aaron Saucier, so Leavitt (5-0) prepared for a physical, grind-it-out affair.

The Purple Panthers went three-and-out on their first two possessions, however, and quickly found themselves in a 22-0 hole. When Waterville (3-2)  finally got its first first down and sustained a couple of decent drives in the second quarter, it seemed like the goal was still just to keep the ball away from the Hornets. Both drives stalled in Leavitt territory.

“We thought they were going to be really tough and practiced all week against our big guys,” said senior two-way lineman Jack Griffin, who led the defense with two sacks.

“Reading the keys was  a big part (of the game plan defensively), filling your hole, taking care of your square,” said linebacker Ouellette.

The Hornets held a huge 215-54 advantage in total yardage by halftime, blending in four completions by Hersom with the big-play running game.

“Up front, I thought we came to play,” Leavitt coach Mike Hathaway said. “Our offensive line did a good job. Our defensive front did a good job. We did a good job of mixing up our calls, and I thought our backs did a great job of blocking on the second level.”

Durgin followed some nice downfield blocking on a counter play and sidestepped a tackler at the 21 on the game’s first score, a 25-yard run. After the defense held Waterville in check on its first possession, Durgin set up his blocking again with a fine punt return that put the offense in good field position, the Panthers’ 40. Five plays later, Ouellette scored from five yards out and Bedard caught the two-point pass from Hersom to make it 14-0.

Runs of 17 and 19 yards by Ouellette and a 16-yard pass to Sam Green preceded Ouellette’s second TD, a 9-yard run up the middle. Durgin’s catch on the two-pointer gave the Hornets a 22-0 lead with a minute left in the first quarter.

“He runs downhill, he makes one cut, he finishes every run,” Hathaway said of Ouellette. “To me, he’s one of the best backs of all time around here. He’s maybe not the flashiest runner, but he’s got the good combination of vision, speed and power and does a good job setting up his blocks.”

Griffin’s first sack helped snuff Waterville’s first promising drive in the second quarter. The Hornets took over at their own 37 and caught a break when a Hersom pass deflected off the shoulder pads of a receiver as he was being hit and into the arms of Durgin for a 21-yard gain down to the Panther 6. From there, Ouellette ran it up the middle untouched to paydirt and it was 30-0.

“It helps when you’ve got guys like Jack (Griffin) and Jake Posik and Devin McMahan and all of those big guys up there blocking and making huge holes,” Ouellette said. “I’ve got the easy work.”

“It was all about technique and who got off the ball faster (up front),” Griffin said. “We really used our speed to our advantage.”

Hersom found the end zone on Leavitt’s first play of the second half when he ran right, juked a defender at the 50 and sprinted inside a Durgin block down the right sideline for a 57-yard touchdown. The senior quarterback added a 30-yard touchdown run and Bedard chipped in with an 8-yard touchdown run later in the quarter.

Waterville spoiled the shutout against Leavitt’s backups with a four-yard touchdown run by Whitten (23 carries, 122 yards) in the fourth quarter.

“I’m really disappointed. I thought we’d put up a better fight than that,” Waterville coach Frank Knight said. “I really don’t know what happened. They unloaded on us and we weren’t ready to play. They outplayed us in every phase of the game, up front, second level and secondary.”