By Stephen Ham

Special to The Leader

An undermanned Red Storm football team took on perennial powerhouse Massabesic on a cold Friday night at Scarborough. When it was over the Mustangs could claim the win, but Scarborough came together as a unit and walked off the field with their heads held high.

The first half of this game was a dog fight. Massabesic used an offense that was as effective as it was one-dimensional, opting to give the ball to their star running back Joey Eon. Eon (353 yards on 39 runs), was immense, but the Red Storm were able to short circuit drives with hard tackling. And although Eon gained yardage in big chunks, Scarborough also forced him to fumble the ball four times, all of which were recovered by Scarborough players.

Now, keep in mind the Storm began the night already down two starters, and in the first three quarters they would lose six more defensive starters. And all they did in the first half was to hold one of the best teams in the state to 14 points.

How did they do it? Coach David Sterling said it was simple really. 

“I think we had some people step up. By the time we had reached the third quarter we had lost six defensive starters. A lot of underclassmen stepped up into roles where they didn’t expect to play early in the game and we were able to play well with them. I think that says a lot about this football program.”

Defensively, there were a number of standout players. The linebackers were involved in nearly every play, and Colin O’Connor, Nick Neugebauer, Spencer Jordan, and Will Wohtjen all had great tackles on multiple plays. O’Connor stopped sure Eon touchdowns on at least two plays with highlight film open field tackles.

The defensive line also got to Eon time and again in the backfield, forcing most of the fumbles. Peter Tuma, Brian Woodbury, Evan Twoomey, and Billy Gorman all had a hand in making the Mustangs look like anything but a polished machine.

The Red Storm offense struggled all night, going to the air in an attempt to take advantage of a defense that was selling out on the run, but were only able to make one scoring drive. That drive though, featured a mix of crossing passes to O’Connor (including one great one where O’Connor reached back for a late pass and snared it on his hip while evading a tackler for a 13 yard pickup), Tom Pogar and Sophomore Mike Cyr. quarterback Zack Bean also called his own number for two critical first down rushes, and finished the drive with a one-yard scoring dive over center.

Scarborough found success in the intermediate passing game consistently, but couldn’t hit on any longer patterns, again paying the price for inexperience and lack of repetitions. Their running game was ineffective as the Mustangs simply played man coverage in the secondary and blitzed their linebackers nearly every down.

Up 27-6, Massabesic continued to drive with it’s first string varsity, only putting in it’s JV players when the ball was on the Scarborough one yard line. In response to the subsequent score, Scarborough’s Brendan Ham took the kickoff at the 15 yard line, made one quick move, then exploded through the Massabesic team at the 35  and raced to the end zone to make the final score 34-12.

Asked about what was necessary for next weeks finale against Kennebunk, Coach Sterling said, “ We’ve got to win, plain and simple. We’ve got some great kids. We’ve got some great seniors and we wanted to win tonight for them, but we came up short.”

Scarborough travels to Kennebunk Friday, Oct. 24, at 7 p.m.