ORONO – The Stearns football team was expecting to see Orono run in Friday’s LTC Class C matchup.

But with the Minutemen playing tough defense, there wasn’t a whole lot of running from the opposition.

Stearns held the Red Riots to 35 yards of offense while racking up 451 yards of its own en route to a 27-0 shutout victory at the high school field.

The Minutemen of Millinocket were looking for a confidence-building win with league favorite Bucksport looming next week.

Stearns is now 3-0, a big turnaround from last year’s 0-3 start.

“We’ve got a lot of confidence going into next Friday,” said quarterback Derek DiFrederico, who completed seven of his 16 pass attempts for 185 yards, threw for one touchdown, and rushed for another.

Orono fell to 1-2.

A group of quick Minutemen linebackers, including DiFrederico, Matt Barnett, Ryan Bouchard, and Craig Cullen seemed to have no problems getting to Orono quarterback Lance Cowan, who was sacked five times in the first half.

“We have some young, inexperienced linemen and they had people in the backfield very consistently,” Orono coach Wally Covell said.

Stearns also limited the Riots to one first down in each half. The Minutemen said they knew Orono would stick to its ground game, and in the end Cowan had just five pass attempts.

“We knew they pulled the tackles and guards a lot, so we knew when they went the defense would follow,” Barnett said. “We had great stunts going on, and we got a lot of tackles in the backfield.”

Meanwhile, Stearns got the ball to Barnett, who had 16 rushes for 96 yards and scored two touchdowns in the first half.

Barnett had TD runs of eight and five yards. His first score was set up by a reverse on a punt return, a play which seemed to give Stearns good field position most of the game.

Craig Jandreau and Matt Wark, who led Stearns with 98 yards on 11 carries, returned punts and also ran a fake reverse.

“Special teams did an excellent job,” Barnett said. “They got some excellent blocks.”

Jandreau also contributed offensively, with three catches for 105 yards. Cullen caught a 29-yard TD pass from DiFrederico, who scored on a 4-yard run in the third quarter.

Linemen Nick Cullen, Dustin Pelletier, Nick Sindo, Jason Cyr, and Aaron Jandreau, along with fullback Craig Cullen, opened big holes for Stearns’ runners.

The Minutemen did have trouble keeping from committing penalties, and were hit with 80 yards in penalties.

“It’s just mental mistakes, but we have to make sure we keep our heads up,” DiFrederico said.

Stearns also turned over the ball three times. One of those turnovers came in the fourth quarter as Nick Legrande tipped a DiFrederico pass. The ball ended up in the hands of defensive back Craig Weatherbee, who returned it 16 yards, although the Red Riots went three-and-out from there.

Joey Fullwood led Orono with 34 yards on 14 carries.

MINUTEMEN 27, RED RIOTS 0

Stearns 6 15 6 0 ? 27

Orono 0 0 0 0 ? 0

S ? Barnett 8 run (kick failed)

S ? Barnett 5 run (LeGassey pass from DiFrederico)

S ? Cullen 29 pass from DiFrederico (Pelkey kick)

S ? DiFrederico 4 run (kick failed)

Stearns Orono

First downs 16 2

Rushing att.-yards 39-266 34-35

Passing comp.-att. 7-16 1-5

Passing yards 185 0

Total yards 451 35

Punts-avg. 4-40.7 9-37.1

Fumbles-lost 1-0 3-2

Intercepted by 1 0

Penalties-yards 8-80 5-25

Rushing

Stearns: M. Wark 11-98, Cullen 4-17, Kim 1-8, Barnett 16-96, DiFrederico 7-47; Orono: Fullwood 14-34, Simon 7-8, Millard 2-1, Nazmy 1-4, Cowan 9-(minus 12)

Passing

Stearns: DiFrederico 7-16-1-185; Orono: Cowan 1-5-0-0

Receiving

Stearns: Jandreau 3-105, LeGassey 2-45, Cullen 1-29, Pelkey 1-8; Orono: Chase 1-0

A?300 (est.)