FRYEBURG — Two big plays on offense and two on defense propelled Fryeburg to the Class C South football title with a 38-0 win over Leavitt on Friday.

The Raiders (8-2) will play either Hermon or Medomak Valley for the Class C state championship next Saturday at Lewiston High School.

“Super excited. We just got to keep working one more week with the family and then hopefully come up with a ‘W’ there,” Fryeburg’s Michael Malia said.

Malia returned an interception 45 yards for a touchdown in the first quarter, and Ty Boone returned a pick out of the end zone for another score on the final play of the first half.

“Our defense has been good all year, and so if we’re ahead and we can play with a lead, that’s always to our advantage,” Fryeburg Coach David Turner said. “But, yeah, (we) started off with that pick-6, and then, you know, we scored a couple other times on drives. Then we got the 100-yard-plus one at the end of the half.”

The top-seeded Raiders led at halftime 24-0, then added pair of long touchdown runs in the third quarter – a 49-yard dash by Jagger Helwig on his only carry of the game and a 50-yarder by Daniel Ruiz – to build a 38-0 lead.

Leavitt Coach Michael Hathaway said the Raiders’ wealth of backfield options is hard to contain.

“Yeah, I mean, Ruiz and (Malik) Sow and Boone, I mean, that’s a tough three-man attack to stop right there,” Hathaway said. “They’re all good at running the ball, and their O-line is really good up front.”

After both teams went three-and-out on their first possessions, the Raiders struck first when Malia stepped in front of a pass with 45 yards of open space between him and the end zone. Ricardo Schulz added the extra point to make it 7-0 with six minutes remaining in first quarter.

“I was just doing my job, like I said, and, you know, it just came my way and I made the play,” Malia said.

After another three-and-out by the third-seeded Hornets (4-6), Fryeburg capped a six-play 33-yard drive with Sow’s 1-yard touchdown run with less than a minute remaining in the first quarter.

Schulz hit a 32-yard field goal to extend the lead to 17-0 in the second quarter. Late in the period, the Hornets’ longest drive of the first half reached the Raiders’ 15-yard line with six seconds remaining, but Boone picked off Brock Poulin in the end zone and returned it to the other end zone.

“I saw my guy running to my side, I saw the QB,” Boone said. “He rolled down. I was like, ‘I hope he throws it.’ Then he did and just made a play.”

The Hornets had a chance to build some momentum early in third quarter when defensive lineman Noah Alexander recovered a fumble at Leavitt’s 25. With Keegan Reny and Randan Hutchinson carrying the load, the Hornets advanced to midfield before turning the ball over on downs.

The Hornets did have success on the ground on Reny runs up the middle. The senior finished with 40 yards on 13 carries. He also completed a pass for 15 yards.

Helwig and Ruiz scored on their long runs to extend the lead to 38-0 and trigger the running clock.

Ruiz finished with seven carries for 66 yards in the game.

“We just felt at that point we would rely on our offensive line, and we got a couple of big runs and a couple of big plays,” Turner said. “They were blitzing a lot on the inside. We just tried to catch them, and we caught them twice for big plays.”