It was not the glamor, unbeaten season of last year, but that mattered little to Marshwood, which won its second straight Class B football championship Saturday night with a 21-14 win over Brunswick at Fitzpatrick Stadium.
Marshwood (10-2) took a 21-0 halftime lead, then held off the Dragons (9-2).
Brunswick scored with 4:25 left but Marshwood never gave the ball back. Zach Doyon converted two third-down runs to clinch the win.
Doyon rushed for 153 yards on 23 carries and caught a 28-yard Cole McDaniel touchdown pass. McDaniel also ran for two touchdowns. Justin Stacy gained 61 yards, keeping Brunswick from focusing too much on Doyon.
Jesse Devereaux rushed for 128 yards and a touchdown on 18 carries for Brunswick.
Saturday’s game was a rematch of last year’s Class B title game won by Marshwood, 44-18. The Hawks completed the sweep of all four classification winners who repeated as champs.
In the 2014 title game, Marshwood took a 24-0 halftime lead, and the Hawks jumped ahead again Saturday, motoring to a 21-0 lead at the half.
“They really executed flawlessly and it showed,” Brunswick Coach Dan Cooper said. “We had a hard time making any stops.”
Marshwood took the opening kickoff and marched quickly, keyed by runs of 21 and 15 yards by Doyon. The Hawks took six plays to drive 73 yards, capped by McDaniel’s 6-yard run. Max Horton’s extra-point kick made it 7-0.
On defense the Hawks were smothering, led by inside linebacker Zach Mitchell.
“Our kids were flying all over the place,” said Marshwood Coach Alex Rotsko, whose team improved steadily all year.
“If you told me six weeks ago (after their second loss) that we would be in this position, I wouldn’t have thought so. But the kids progressed each week. Last year we had a lot of studs and this was more of a blue-collar team.”
Marshwood’s second touchdown drive was kept alive by Doyon’s reverse-field run. He capped it by hauling in the touchdown pass. Marshwood led 14-0.
The execution continued with a 56-yard drive to end the first half ahead 21-0.
But Brunswick wouldn’t fold. Despite the limited ability of standout running back Will Bessey – held to one carry for no yards – because of a strained hamstring, the Dragons came back.
“(Bessey) has dug us out of a lot of jams in three years. When we got down tonight, he wasn’t there,” Cooper said. “But I’m proud of the kids. They rallied.”
Two time-consuming drives, one almost seven minutes, the other almost six – brought Brunswick back. Devereaux picked up most of the yardage, including a 5-yard scoring run.
On the second touchdown drive, on fourth-and-4 from the Marshwood 15, quarterback Tom Hanson found Jackson Gordon in the end zone to close the score to 21-14, with 4:25 left.
Brunswick kicked off, needing to hold the Hawks. Marshwood faced a third-and-3 and Doyon gained 4 yards. The Dragons began taking timeouts. With two minutes left the Hawks had a third-and-10 at their 36.
Knowing Brunswick was stopping his team up the middle, Rotsko called for a “counter criss-cross,” a risky play with a double handoff.
“I got the handoff from (halfback) Kyle Glidden and the line opened up a huge hole,” Doyon said. “I just hit it hard.”
With the line – Alex Fudge, Mitchell, Curtis McLean, Trevor Messier and Chikacha Nduaguibe – doing its job, Doyon gained 33 yards to the Dragons 31. Brunswick was out of timeouts and the Hawks were soon celebrating.
“I thought we might have a down year because all the seniors were gone (from last year),” Doyon said. “We just clicked and turned it on at the right time.
“Those losses this year actually helped us. We made mistakes. Eliminating those mistakes and practicing hard got us here today.”
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