STANDISH — Bonny Eagle Coach Kevin Cooper wasn’t sure how to describe Cam Theberge’s impact. He just knew it was huge.

Three distinctly different but equally explosive plays from Theberge keyed the top-seeded Scots’ 40-20 win over No. 2 Scarborough in Friday night’s Class A South final.

Theberge opened the scoring when he turned a quick screen pass into a 59-yard sprint and later scored on a 94-yard kick return to quickly stymie a possible Red Storm comeback. His 44-yard interception return to the 1 set up Nick Thorne for a short TD run that lifted the Scots to a 19-7 lead early in the third quarter.

“Oh, man, those plays, I don’t have words,” Cooper said. “The screen pass that he took to the house and obviously the interception return were unreal. Then he follows them up with the kickoff return. He was unreal tonight.”

Bonny Eagle (10-0) advances to next Saturday’s state championship game at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland against Portland (9-1). It will be the Scots’ first trip to the final since 2013, when it beat Cheverus for its fifth title under Cooper.

“Any time you earn a trip to the state title game, it feels pretty great,” Cooper said. “Scarborough’s a heck of a team. We expected a great battle today and they gave it to us.”

Scarborough (8-3) reached the regional final for the first time.

The Red Storm was coming off a brilliant offensive effort in a 36-29 win at No. 2 Thornton Academy.

Bonny Eagle limited Scarborough to 103 yards on the ground and quarterback Zoltan Panyi was 6-of-16 passing for 135 yards. Panyi did throw three touchdown passes, two to Cody Dudley of 36 and 55 yards, and one to Reece Lagerquist.

“Bonny Eagle has a lot of veteran guys and this has been their goal all year,” said Scarborough Coach Lance Johnson. “We had to come to their place after our big win last week and we had a short week because we played Saturday. I think they were just more ready to play than we were and did a great job.”

The Scots pushed the lead to 26-7 on a 9-yard pass from Cam Day to Kordell Menard. Day, who rushed for 66 yards, completed 2 of 4 passes – both for touchdowns.

Panyi and Dudley immediately followed with their 55-yard score, showing the Red Storm wouldn’t go quietly.

But Theberge gathered in Emmett Peoples’ kick on the right side of the field and sprinted to the left. Earlier in the half he’d had a similar runback in which Peoples was able to slow him enough that he was tackled at the 50. This time Theberge side-stepped the kicker and accelerated away.

“My role is to produce those big plays,” Theberge said. “We have great players helping me out and stuff. I just have good players around me.”

Panyi’s third touchdown pass, an 8-yard fade to the 6-foot-4 Lagerquist, came with 10:52 to play and cut the Scots’ lead to 33-20.

Bonny Eagle put the game out of reach with a strong 11-play, 63-yard drive, highlighted by a 26-yard run by Day. The senior quarterback capped the drive with a 1-yard run.

“We had that return and that just gave us the momentum to do good on offense and we went from there,” Day said.

In the first quarter, Bonny Eagle scored on the Theberge screen pass and a 75-yard burst by Alex Sprague (13 carries, 118 yards) to sandwich the first Panyi-to-Dudley score. Neither team scored in the second quarter as the Scots took a 13-7 lead to the half.

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