SACO — The Thornton Academy football team delivered in all three phases on Friday night to cruise to a 55-12 win over visiting Deering during the annual Blackout game at Paul S. Hill Stadium.

The Trojans were dominant throughout, and took advantage of every Deering mistake. Field position was key for the TA, whose starting offense racked up 42 points in the first three quarters while putting up just over 200 yards in total offense.

“We got great field position and were able to capitalize on it. I thought we did a good job of spreading the football around and just our schemes in general, our schemes up front,” said TA head coach Kevin Kezal after the win. “We’re a young club. We only have three seniors on offense so we’ve been trying to get a little bit better each week. I thought we came out with great emotion, we have a great student body and we played well.”

TA quickly jumped ahead in the first quarter when quarterback Will Mitchell connected with C.J. LaBreck for two touchdown passes to give the Trojans the 14-0 lead.

The Rams would get on the board under two minutes into the second half when Keegan Stanton took a pass 83 yards for the score.

TA’s defense rebounded well from there out, not allowing another score and surrendering less than 80 yards the rest of the way.

“We’ve played pretty good defense and our goal was not to give up the big play,” said Kezal. “Other than that one big pass in the first half we really made them drive downfield and earn it … I thought we did a really good job except for that one play.”

TA continued to roll, and got a touchdown on the ensuing drive on a three-yard rush from Grant Dow, set up by a big 55-yard scamper by Mitchell. Deering would later botch a punt and turned the ball over at its own 10-yard line to give TA possession with just under a minute left in the half. The Trojans capitalized as Dow rushed for his second score of the game, extending the TA lead to 28-6 at the break.

LaBreck added to his night in the third quarter, taking the opening kickoff the distance for a score and then receiving a 12-yard touchdown pass for his fourth touchdown of the game. 

Julien BaileyCottle took over rushing duties late in the third quarter and into the fourth, and made the most of his opportunity as he rushed for two touchdowns. Deering’s last points came when Luc Harrison returned a kickoff the distance in the third quarter.

Mitchell finished the day with 120 yards passing, 59 yards rushing and three touchdown passes. LaBreck finished with 44 yards receiving and three scores and Anthony Bracamonte added 50 yards from scrimmage. 

Jason Montano, Cam Houde and Thomas Palmer had sacks on the defensive side for TA.

Kezal has been pleased with his team’s development and leadership early in the season.

“They’re working hard, they’re taking coaching and the coaching staff has done a really good job with them. We’ve got some great senior leadership, we don’t have a big senior class but they’ve shown great leadership and the underclassmen have followed their lead,” said Kezal.

TA improves to 2-0 on the year and will face Scarborough next week. Kezal and company are happy with the 2-0 start, but hope to improve as the season continues.

“It’s big. We’ve got a big one coming next week so we’ll see where we’re at,” said Kezal. “It’s important to start 2-0 … the goal is to get that bye in the first round of the playoffs which will be hard against the teams in our division. We’re just going to take it one step at a time and see what happens.”

— Associate Sports Editor Alex Sponseller can be reached at [email protected] or at 282-1535 ext. 323. Follow the Journal Tribune Sports Department on Twitter @JournalTsports.