By Kevin Mills,Staff Writer

BANGOR – In a span of 48 minutes Friday night, the Mt. Blue football team unleashed 14 years of frustration in the Queen City.

The Cougars not only remained unbeaten, but did it in impressive fashion with a convincing 42-0 win over Bangor at Cameron Stadium.

“I’m speechless,” said Mt. Blue coach Gary Parlin, whose team has pitched back-to-back shutouts. “I don’t know what to say. This is a program that we all want to be like. They’re consistent. They do things right. Beating them, this is the biggest win we’ve had this year. I wish we could bottle our pregame tonight. They were as ready as I’ve seen.”

The current Cougars had lost to Bangor 7-6 as freshmen and sophomores and by a 3-0 score last year. The last time Mt. Blue won in Bangor was 1991.

“We were just sick of it,” said senior linebacker Tom Robinson. “We weren’t going to stop until the final whistle.”

Bangor (4-3) needed a win Friday to bolster its playoff hopes, but those chances were dashed in a hurry. Mt. Blue (7-0) scored after a fumble recovery in the first quarter and then rolled to a 28-0 halftime lead with three scores in the second quarter.

“We just got our butts kicked,” said Bangor coach Mark Hackett. “They beat us at every aspect of the game. They’re the best team we’ve played. The harder we tried, the worse it got.”

Despite sputtering on its first series, the Cougars offense got rolling and the Rams could do little to stop it. Mason Barker threw for 93 yards on nine completions. He also ran for 50 yards and two touchdowns.

“Once we got cooking there was nothing like it,” said Barker. “That’s the best I’ve felt on offense. We just took it down the field. It was like a dream come true.”

The Mt. Blue defense was equally impressive. Bangor was held to just two first downs in the first half, and mustered just 101 yards total in the opening half, 65 of those came on three completions.

“At the beginning of the year, the defense wasn’t doing the job as well,” said Robinson. “We just came more prepared than usual. We went over the game plan, we watched the films, we studied the scouting report. We just came to rock and roll.”

The defense helped set the tone early. Two plays after a 60-yard Mt. Blue punt, Byron Staples recovered a Bangor fumble on 18-yard line.

“Our turnover ratio hasn’t been great,” said Parlin. “It was nice to get a couple tonight.”

Mt. Blue turned that into a 7-0 lead with 6:50 left in the first quarter on a Mike Toothaker 13-yard run. He finished with 66 yards on 14 carries.

After Bangor failed to counter offensively, the Cougars produced a 68-yard drive that ended with a Barker bootleg from the 5 with 10:15 left in the half.

“He’s a lot faster than he looks,” said Parlin. “He’s a tall kid that when he runs he doesn’t look like he’s going very fast, but he can move.”

Barker added a 16-yard scamper with 4:32 left to make it 21-0. Justin Love finished the first half with a plunge from the 2.

“They’re very talented,” said Hackett. “You’d take away one thing and they’d go to the next thing. Even when we guessed right, they’d still beat us.”

The second half didn’t start much better for the Rams. Kevin Averill took the kickoff and raced 95 yards for the score. Alex Johnson added a run from the 5 with 3:16 left in the third.