KENTS HILL — Maranacook/Winthrop will typically practice its defense more than its offense early in the season.

Not this week, after managing only three goals in a season-opening loss to North Yarmouth Academy.

“Usually, I stress that defense is the most important thing, and once we perfect our defense we can move on to the offense,” Maranacook/Winthrop coach Zach Stewart said. “But this week, after the problems with NYA, we’ve shot thousands of balls. I’m still out of breath from blowing the whistle. We just shot, shot, shot, shot.”

That spelled danger for Oak Hill, the Hawks’ opponent Friday. In a confluence of unfortunate circumstances for Oak Hill, the Raiders not only had to face a hungry and determined Maranacook/Winthrop squad, but had to do so without all-conference goalie Matt Martin, and without the services of three upperclassmen in the first quarter, for disciplinary reasons.

The recipe yielded a lopsided, 20-1 Hawks victory at the Harold Alfond Sports Complex at Kents Hill School.

“The biggest thing is, kids taking things more seriously in practice,” Oak Hill coach Dan Brannigan said. “They’ll go through the motions or whatever, but we couldn’t pass or catch a ball today; we couldn’t cradle. Little things like that, it was killing us.”

Kyle Tervo performed admirably in Martin’s absence, stopping 14 shots in the loss.

“We have Matty, who’s probably one of the top three goalies in the state, and when you step into a backup, it changes things,” Brannigan said. “I give (Kyle) Tervo all the credit in the world. He hadn’t played goalie since his freshman year, and we don’t have a backup goalie. He decided, ‘Hey coach, I’ll step up,’ so for the past week and a half, we’ve been peppering him with shots, telling him, ‘Do what you can.’ There’s only so much you can teach someone about being a goalie in a week.”

The way the Hawks’ offense was working Friday, Martin might have made a difference but likely not of the game-changing variety.

“This game against Oak Hill, even if they have a full squad, we were scoring goals on the doorstep; everything was high percentage,” Stewart said. “There were maybe five goals or so that wouldn’t have gone in. When we play them again, it’s not easy in high school to beat somebody twice, especially when they’ll be bringing back a keeper and their starters will overcome whatever other issues they were having.”

And the blitz began early. Denver Cram, Bailey Clark and Kyle Morand each scored twice and Ty Smith added another in the first quarter as the home team opened a 7-0 advantage.

“That was pretty wild,” Stewart said. “We had four different guys we wanted to test early in certain spots … Our first initial plans to figure out how the day was going to go, everyone was, ‘boom boom boom boom.'”

Oak Hill stopped the onslaught in the second quarter and struck for its only goal with 4:49 to play in the half on a shot from Steven Gilbert. But the Hawks tacked on two more, one each from Cram and Zach Lacasse.

A second set of players rolled in the third and fourth quarters for Maranacook/Winthrop. James Canwell netted four in the third frame and Cram added another pair in the fourth to highlight the second-half scoring.

Isaiah Weston nearly pitched the shutout in the cage for the Hawks (1-1), stopping five of the six shots on cage.

“We didn’t really think it would be as big a win as it was,” Canwell said. “We expect if we play them again it will be a harder game.”

Oak Hill is counting on that, too.

“I told them, I looked at the board and immediately erased it from my mind,” Brannigan said. “This isn’t a 20-1 difference, a 19-goal difference in talent. Give me a run at them with all of my guys any other week and we’ll hang with them, at least.”

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