By Randy Whitehouse,Staff Writer

AUBURN – For the first 47 minutes and 56 seconds Friday night, Edward Little saw opportunity after opportunity slip through its fingers.

But when victory was within Jon Demers’ grasp, he grabbed it and clung to it.

Demers caught a 53-yard Hail Mary touchdown pass from Troy Barnies with four seconds left to break a scoreless tie and send the Red Eddies to a thrilling 6-0 win over Lawrence at Walton Field.

On third and 10 at the Bulldog 47, Barnies took the snap, rolled right to avoid some light pressure, then fired to Demers, who leaped between two Lawrence defenders, pulled the ball down at the 10, turned and outraced another Bulldog to the end zone.

“We basically ran streaks,” Demers said. “I got behind the coverage and he saw me and I got it and held on.”

“I was supposed to make a straight drop, but I got pressured and I had to scramble to the right and luckily Jon was open,” said Barnies, who completed just five of 19 pass attempts for 102 yards, but had several passes dropped by his receivers.

The first meeting between coaches and twin brothers John Hersom of Lawrence and Jim of EL was a defensive struggle for the first 49 minutes. Lawrence (1-1) drove deep into EL (2-0) territory on its first possession of each half, but Andrew Ashland missed field goal attempts from 32 and 33 yards, both wide left.

The Bulldogs lost starting quarterback Aaron Champagne for the game with a sprained ankle suffered on the last play of the first half. Sophomore Mike Hersom, John’s son, took over at QB, but the Eddies’ defense, led by linemen Nate Chantrill and Adam Redmun, dominated after the first drive of the second half, holding the Bulldogs without a first down the rest of the way.

“We were hoping to be able to run the football and continue to do a lot of what we did a week ago (in an upset win over Skowhegan),” said John Hersom. “But they took away a lot of our offense inside with their linebackers and linemen getting into the backfield.”

EL’s staunch run defense helped set the offense up with good field position for much of the night. The Eddies started from Lawrence’s 32 in the second quarter and got as close as the six, but a penalty and a couple of incompletions by Barnies drove them back a few yards and stalled that scoring opportunity on fourth down.

The Eddies either started in or marched into Lawrence’s end four more times. They never got any closer than the 18, but they continued to test the Bulldog secondary and had three pass plays that could have gone for long yardage, if not a touchdown, and dropped them.