Every high school football team playing in November is one of two things: Beaten up, or lying.

The Western Class B playoffs are taking that rule of thumb and belaboring the point with more key injuries than you count on your fingers.

“This is real, high school playoff football,” Mountain Valley coach Jim Aylward said in the waning moments of Friday’s 13-0 semifinal shutout of Cape Elizabeth. “Both these teams are beat the hell up. It started two weeks ago.”

No team has been harder in multiple key spots than Mountain Valley. It is a credit to the Falcons’ coaching, depth, determination and tradition — 17 trips to the regional championship game in 23 years — that they are still playing.

Senior all-conference tailback Kyle Duguay suffered the scariest injury yet. He was removed on a stretcher and taken to the local hospital for precautionary x-rays after a first-quarter hit.

Duguay had carried the ball only four times for six yards in a scoreless game.

His loss further weakened a backfield that was already down one 1,000-yard runner. Fullback Matt Hosie was held out of a 48-0 quarterfinal rout of Spruce Mountain with a left ankle injury.

Limping noticeably, Hosie moved from limited action into a co-starring role against Cape. He somehow surged ahead seven times for 42 yards, most of it during a second quarter scoring drive.

Hosie would stumble forward for a substantial gain through a hole created by the Falcons’ offensive line — they have at least two injured starters, too — then hobble to the sidelines for rest or quick treatment before shuffling back in.

“Ryan Glover’s shoulder is still bothering him. Ryan Stickney is hurt. And here’s Matt Hosie, running like a deer who’s been hit in the middle of the road,” Aylward said. “But somehow we keep finding a way and we get to worry about it for another week.”

Much of the credit goes to the Mountain Valley defense, which brought 300-pound fullback Andrew Lavallee to the ground 23 times and knocked quarterback Connor Maguire out of the game for the second time in three weeks.

Cape lineman Matt Ross already was on crutches after injuring his foot on the opening kickoff of the regular-season game against Mountain Valley.

“I think if you look at them, they probably are even more banged up than we are,” Aylward said.

No. 1 Wells isn’t immune from the injury bug. Senior QB Paul McDonough has been playing on a leg injury suffered against Mountain Valley on Oct. 7.

The Warriors clinched home field for the championship game with a 28-12 victory over the Falcons that night.

Mountain Valley won regional championship games on the road at Gorham in 2004 and Cape Elizabeth in 2007.

Aylward’s final words to his team in Friday‘s post-game huddle: “We get to get on a bus next Saturday morning and go to the promised land.”

Hornets hot at home

Top-seeded Leavitt’s 47-22 victory over Hampden Academy Friday night was not only its 32nd consecutive Pine Tree Conference win, but its 20th in a row at home. The Hornets’ last home loss was Morse’s 7-0 upset in the 2008 Eastern B semifinals.

In retrospect, that makes their 22-17 win over regional final opponent Mt. Blue on Oct. 7 in Farmington one of the biggest regular season wins in that 32-game run.

“It was an important game to win for us the last time to get that homefield advantage,” Leavitt coach Mike Hathaway said. “We like it. You get used to a routine at home.”

Unlike the last two years when Leavitt hosted the Pine Tree Conference final against Gardiner, this game will be played on Friday night. In 2009 and 2010, the championship was played on Saturday and conflicted with the big craft fair held annually at the high school.

The first meeting between the teams was one of the most exciting, and evenly-played, games of the season. Leavitt outgained Mt. Blue, 321-318. Hathaway said he expects another nail-biter for the PTC title.

“I think it’ll be another great game,” he said. “They’ve got marquee players at the skill slots.”

“They’re pretty balanced,” he added. “They have too many playmakers all over the field. We have to just have to be pretty solid defensively.”

Cougar power

Mt. Blue has demonstrated an ability to move the ball through any number of means this season. The last two weeks, it has fine-tuned one of the lesser-known weapons in its vast arsenal — the power running game.

In the quarterfinals against MDI, junior Bradley Jackson pounded the Trojans into submission in the second half. In last Friday’s 35-14 semifinal win over Gardiner, it was Chad Luker who tore the Tigers up between the tackles for 94 yards and a nine-yard touchdown on nine second-half carries.

Luker didn’t have immediate success on the ground, but the Cougars stuck with the smashmouth approach and salted the game away with the 190-pound junior.

“At halftime, we thought we could run ‘belly,'” Mt. Blue coach Gary Parlin said, referring to one of the staples of the power running game. “The first time we ran ‘belly,’ they slanted away from our tight end, which they hadn’t been doing much, so we tripped over the nose man. (Line) coach (Peter) Franchetti said, ‘It’s there. It’s there, Come back to it.’ So we probably ran ‘belly’ six or seven times.”

“We were going to bring Bradley Jackson in to run it, too, but Chad was running real well. Chad wanted that last touchdown, that’s for sure,” Parlin said.

With Luker leading the way in the second half, the Cougars were able to pile up 145 of their 228 rushing yards on the night. This despite losing all-conference senior tackle Dustin Zamboni, who had to be helped off the field after being injured on the second play of the third quarter.

Parlin wasn’t optimistic about Zamboni’s return for next week’s game with Leavitt. Zamboni is scheduled to undergo an MRI on Monday.

“It doesn’t look good,” Parlin said following the game. “He’s got some sort of knee injury, which might put him out for…, but it doesn’t look good.”

Staff writer Dave St. Hilaire contributed to this report