LEWISTON — For all of the offensive weapons in Lewiston’s arsenal, and in a game featuring 63 points between two teams, a pair of series on defense made all of the difference.

Kevin St. Pierre scooped up a fumble caused by Joe McKinnon on the Indians’ second offensive series of the fourth quarter, and hauled down star Skowhegan running back Tyler Savage on a fourth-and-4 with 2:39 to play in a tie game to help secure for the Blue Devils a much-needed 35-28 victory.

“I really don’t remember the tackle much, but the fumble recovery, we all worked together as a unit and stopped them,” St. Pierre said. “(McKinnon) is the one that hit that, it just popped up and I got it.”

“I looked over at the coach, and he told us he needed us to go in,” McKinnon said. “The quarterback was doing ‘super-power’ the whole game, and he was blocking me. I said, ‘I’m sick of this,’ I ran past him and hit the guy with the ball. Next thing I know, we’d recovered it.”

Skowhegan, one of a pair of teams that runs the double-wing offense, perplexed the Blue Devils’ defense in the opening half, aided by penalties and great field position. But Lewiston turned things around in the second half to even its record at 2-2. Rudy Pandora led the way on defense with 10 solo tackles.

“It took us a while to get our heads on straight tonight,” Lewiston coach Bill County said.

The Blue Devils were playing the game with heavy hearts. A former player and one of the Blue Devils’ fiercest student boosters, Andrew Jackson, passed away early Friday morning. The team observed a moment of silence for Jackson before the contest, and took a knee in silence as a squad just before kickoff.

“I think they thought of Andrew a lot tonight,” County said. “He meant a lot to this program. He was a kid who was always screaming and yelling and enthusiastic. I told the kids at halftime, you can’t dedicate a game to a kid and then screw it up. I think overcoming adversity was where we were today.”

After St. Pierre’s second big play in a 15-minute stretch, it was the offense’s turn. Lewiston running back Jeff Turcotte, hampered along with many of his teammates with cramps on a warm, muggy evening, returned to the game on a first-and-10 for the Devils at the Skowhegan 44. The Indians’ defense bit on the fake to Turcotte around right end, and quarterback Chris Madden had all day to find Steve Patrie up the left side for a 44-yard catch-and-run. A Tom Hird boot tacked on a point to the home team’s second lead of the game.

“I figured if we were going to throw the ball, we were going to do it on first down. T hey’d been bringing a lot of guys on first down,” County said. “We thought we might catch the deep ball, but Steve was open on the out and Chris did a nice job of getting it to him. It was a great fake, and if we hadn’t thrown the ball, we could have just kept it around that back side. Turcotte’s a threat, and when you put it in his belly and then pull it out, a lot of people react.”

The Indians tried to change things up on their final series, going away from Savage, who had racked up 236 yards on 37 carries.

Ethan Johnson’s last-ditch pass on fourth down with about a minute to play fell incomplete along the right sideline.

“I think that gave us our best shot to win,” Skowhegan coach Mike Marston said.

Skowhegan could do little wrong early in the contest. Adam Dusty returned the opening kickoff 74 yards to the Lewiston 19, and Johnson found Justin Grant in the end zone on the third play from scrimmage to give the visitors a quick lead.

Lewiston countered four plays later as Turcotte rambled into the end zone from 37 yards out. Both teams went for two successfully.

Dusty and Savage made it 16-8 with another TD and two-pointer another five plays later.

In the second, the Indians went on top 22-8 on a 29-yard scamper from Savage, who continued to find ways to tiptoe through the Lewiston line when it appeared he’d been stopped short.

Turcotte found the end zone on another long run, this one from 46 yards out. Penalties and a fumble derailed Skowhegan’s next two drives before halftime.

“I think we shot ourselves in the foot a little bit tonight, too,” Marston said. “We had some penalties and fumbles at some bad times.”

Lewiston opened the second half with the ball, and with some confidence on both sides of the ball.

After a 56-yard run from Turcotte — his last until the end of the fourth quarter — Madden dove in from a yard out to pull Lewiston within two.

“I don’t know what was going on with our injuries,” McKinnon said. “We had, I’ll call it ‘cramp-itis.'”

The teams traded futile series until Madden hooked up with Caleb Johnson for a 40-yard pass up the right side for a TD to give the Devils their first lead of the contest.

Skowhegan drove right back down the field and punched in another early in the fourth, but failed on the two-pointer after a holding penalty negated the original, successful run.