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LEWISTON – The youthful Bangor High football team endured some growing pains in its season opener Friday night.
Most were inflicted by Jared Turcotte, a junior tailback who rushed for 237 yards and three touchdowns to lead Lewiston to a 20-7 Pine Tree ConferenceClass A victory over the Rams at Don Roux Field.
A 1,000-yard rusher as a sophomore, the 6-foot-1, 215-pound Turcotte made much of his yardage against Bangor by breaking tackles or on bursts down the sideline after making his initial move at the line of scrimmage.
“I wanted the ball, and when I have the ball I want to try to make something happen,” he said. “But I wouldn’t be able to do anything without my offensive line.”
Turcotte and the Blue Devils played with a heavy heart, as Robert Lagasse, the father of Lewiston junior running back Ryan Legasse, died earlier this week.
“I was just thinking about Mr. Legasse all night,” said Turcotte. “I’ve been close to the family since I was young, and Ryan’s my best friend. That was my fuel tonight.”
Bangor, which fielded an entire new backfield from the 2004 team that won the Eastern Maine Class A title, struggled with its offense.
The Rams managed just 61 rushing yards on 20 carries, and while sophomore quarterback Ian Edwards had some early passing success – completing four first-half throws for 110 yards – Lewiston was able to contain Bangor’s air game after intermission.
“We missed a few assignments,” said Bangor coach Mark Hackett, “and when you play a team that may be a little stronger, may have a little more experience and may be a little more determined, you can’t make mental mistakes. I blame that on coaching.”
Yet Bangor was still within 14-7 early in the fourth quarter, and Lewiston was set to punt on fourth-and-4 from the Rams’ 43.
But Blue Devils’ coach Bill County called time, and on second thought turned back to Turcotte. Turcotte took a pitch to the right, broke some tackles and scored the back-breaker to give the Lewiston a 13-point advantage with 9:03 to play.
“There were three things that went into that decision,” said County. “We believe that anytime Jared Turcotte has the ball in his hands he’ll get the job done, we had a poor punt snap the last time we punted the ball, and I felt like we had played pretty good defense, so even if we didn’t make it on fourth down, they’d get the ball at about the 35 and that wasn’t an awful position for us to be in.”
Lewiston, which has won just two games each of the last two seasons, opened the scoring on a 53-yard run by Turcotte with 2:12 left in the first quarter. The play was the Blue Devils’ first attempt at running wide on an option play, with quarterback Chris Ford faking a keeper and then pitching to Turcotte, who raced down the left sideline.
“I could see there was going to be an opening,” said Turcotte, “because we had been running the belly against them and the defensive end and outside linebacker were both pinching in. When they pinched it, it was open to the outside.”
Bangor tied the game at 7-7 on the first play of the second quarter, when Edwards found Tom Crews (four catches, 113 yards) down the right sideline for a 49-yard pass play.
But Lewiston countered with a nine-play, 63-yard march that ended with Turcotte scoring on a 13-yard run with 8:33 left in the half.
Bangor then drove downfield courtesy of a 44-yard pass from Edwards to Crews, and the Rams moved to a fourth-and-1 from the Lewiston 3 before an illegal procedure penalty moved them back five yards and prompted a 25-yard field goal try by Tyson Barron. Barron made the kick, but another penalty negated the field goal and forced Barron into a 31-yard try that was wide left.
Bangor capitalized on a bad Lewiston punt snap to gain possession at the Lewiston 24 with 3:48 left in the third quarter, and used a 9-yard-run by Jimmy Clukey to earn first-and-goal at the 10. But the drive came up empty as Ford intercepted a fourth-down pass in the end zone.
BLUE DEVILS 20, RAMS 7
Bangor 0 7 0 0 – 7
Lewiston 7 7 0 6 – 20
L -Turcotte 53 run (Gagnon kick)
B – Crews 49 pass from Edwards (Barron kick)
L – Turcotte 13 run (Gagnon kick)
L – Turcotte 43 run (pass failed)
Bangor Lewiston
First downs 8 15
Rushing att.-yards 21-60 44-291
Passing comp.-att. 5-16 1-3
Passing yards 119 8
Total yards 179 299
Punts-avg. 3-40.7 3-28
Fumbles-lost 1-0 6-1
Intercepted by 0 2
Penalties-yards 2-10 7-47
Rushing
Bangor: Clueky 4-28, Sliver 8-28, Gallant 8-3, Bamrick 8-1; Lewiston: Turcotte 26-237, Preston 9-42, Ford 5-26, Letourneau 1-5, Lagasse 1-4, Thibeault 1-1, Gagnon 1-minus-24
Passing
Bangor: Edwards 5-16-119-2; Lewiston: Ford 1-3-8-0
Receiving
Bangor: Crews 4-113, Barron 1-6; Lewiston: Turcotte 1-8
A-500
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