Balanced Cougars top Rams

BANGOR – Whenever the Bangor High football team let loose a on a scoring drive in Friday night’s exhibition game against Mt. Blue, it was a pretty sight.

A 48-yard touchdown pass, a 60-yard run and a 58-yard completion for a TD on the final play of the first half electrified about 300 fans under the lights at Cameron Stadium.

But the Rams were unable to maintain a consistent running game and had trouble stopping Cougars running back Randy Hutchinson as Mt. Blue of Farmington earned a 31-21 victory over Bangor.

“We just gave up too many points,” Bangor coach Gabby Price said. “Give all the credit to Mt. Blue. They played well. We didn’t play as well as we hoped, but we’ll get better.”

Friday was Bangor’s last preseason game before the opener against Lawrence of Fairfield Sept. 1. Mt. Blue opens its season against Oxford Hills of South Paris next Friday.

The meeting of Pine Tree Conference rivals seemed more like a regular-season game than a preseason matchup. Both sides executed big hits, big runs and big passes.

Still, Price wants to see his team get tougher.

“We’ll get a lot more physical on defense, that’s for sure,” he said. “We’ve got to get stronger on offense. Usually our keys are offensive and defensive lines and we’ve got to play better there.”

Bangor took a 6-0 lead on quarterback Joe Vanidestine’s 48-yard TD pass to Mike Quirk but couldn’t convert the PAT attempt. The Cougars came right back on the next drive with QB Marcus Corey’s 55-yard pass to Corey Shaw.

Bangor took a 14-7 lead after Bangor tailback Justin Libbey rambled 60 yards for a score (and carried the ball on the successful two-point conversion).

Mt. Blue had its first sustained drive, a mix of passes from Corey to Shaw and Carmine Neal, and runs by Hutchinson, that ate up nearly seven minutes of the first and second quarters, capped by Hutchinson’s two-yard touchdown run.

“Whenever we’ve been able to run the ball successfully we’ve been able to pass it well,” Mt. Blue coach Gary Parlin said. “We’ve come up here many times and they’ve stopped the run and made us pass and we weren’t that effective.”

With less than 10 seconds left in the first half Vanidestine lofted a pass to Quirk, who ran it in for a 21-17 lead. It would be Bangor’s final score of the game, while Mt. Blue’s Troy Adams kicked a field goal and Corey scored on a four-yard run.

Bangor was also unable to capitalize on a few Mt. Blue mistakes. The Cougars fumbled the ball three times but recovered it each time. On one bad snap from scrimmage Hutchinson lost the ball but picked it back up and ran for a first down.

“Usually that goes to the team that hustles a little more and I think they outhustled us a little bit. We just were standing around a little too much,” Price said.

Bangor got burned several times by Hutchinson, a 5-foot-5, 180-pound back who uses his weight to bull through the defense. The senior rushed for 789 yards in the regular season last year.

“He kinda got lost in the shuffle in our offense last year but he’s a big-time player,” Parlin said.