BETHEL — For the second consecutive game Old Orchard Beach didn’t score in the second half. This time the Seagulls didn’t need to. The visiting Seagulls scored early and often, rolling to a 41-0 lead early in the second quarter – a score that stood until the final whistle in a Class D South football game against Telstar Saturday.
Old Orchard Beach (1-2) scored on touchdown runs by Erik Hogan, Dylan Creswell and Dylan Boudreau, Creswell threw touchdown passes to Joe Anderson and Zach Hirst, and Hogan also returned an interception for a touchdown. Boudreau’s 22-yard scoring run capped off the scoring with just a few minutes gone by in the second quarter.
“That’s always good to take the lid off, so to speak. When we were evaluating our first two games, we moved the ball, we just kept making mistakes when we got close (to the end zone),” said Old Orchard Beach head coach Dean Plante. “We were talking all week about just finishing drives and taking care of the ball in the red zone. No mental mistakes, no negative plays in the red zone, and we thought we’d be fine.”
The Seagull defense had a second consecutive strong performance, holding the Rebels (0-2) offense silent. They have yet to score through two games this season.
“That’s three straight halves of shutout football for us,” Plante said of his defense, which held Lisbon to just one firsthalf touchdown last week. “We made a lot of changes after our preseason and first week. We kind of reevaluated, as a staff, our philosophy, with the types of kids we have this year.”
The Seagulls were picked apart on the defensive side of the ball in a season-opening 42-14 loss to Oak Hill. Plante credited defensive coordinator Curt Chretien with turning the defense around after that game.
“I’m pleased with where the defense is right now,” said Plante.
Old Orchard Beach used all 40 of its players in the first half, and Plante said he was happy to get all of his players reps – especially for a team he said is young overall.
All those players got a taste of success for the first time this season, and the Seagulls will look to keep that going into a critical midseason matchup against 1-2 Traip Academy.
“It’s really huge, when you start positioning yourself or where you end up in the playoffs,” Plante said of that matchup with the Rangers. “Traip’s 1-2, so a win over Traip gets us in a pretty good position to control our destiny, and possibly host (a first-round playoff game) instead of travel.”
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
