Two Class A teams struggling to find wins, combined to find many ways to make victory more difficult Friday night.

But in the end, Deering High found enough good plays to pull out a 13-7 victory at Memorial Field over South Portland.

Deering improves to 2-4. South Portland, beset with injuries and dressing only 28 players, is 1-5.

Mike Randall scored both Deering touchdowns. His second came on a 33-yard pass from James Opio to put the Rams ahead 13-0 in the third quarter.

Just prior to the snap, Deering Coach Rob Susi could be heard above the smallish crowd yelling at Randall.

“Our coach read the coverage from the sideline and adjusted my route on the fly. James did a good job picking up the adjustment and delivered a strike,” Randall said.

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South Portland cut the lead to 13-7 with 8:27 to play when it put together its best drive of the game, despite committing two of its 11 penalties. QB Anthony Poole was effective running and Artimus Stilley finished the drive with an 8-yard run.

In the final minute of the game, a pass from Poole to Josh Frank would have set up South Portland at Deering’s 2, but the Red Riots were penalized for an ineligible receiver downfield.

It was that type of night for South Portland, which had five turnovers.

“They played extremely hard, we’re prepared and did a lot of good things defensively but at crucial points we tried to do too much,” said South Portland Coach Steve Stinson.

Deering had its issues, with eight penalties and two turnovers but cleaned up its mistakes in the second half.

Both teams’ run defenses were tough.

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“Tonight things definitely went wrong throughout the game but they kind of stayed the course and kept slugging away,” Susi said

In the first half, the teams combined for five turnovers (three by South Portland) and 13 penalties. The play that summed up the frustrating night was when Randall’s interception return for a touchdown was negated by a block-in-the-back penalty that occurred 15 yards behind him as he was nearing the end zone.

Instead of a two-touchdown lead, Deering was stymied on downs – an illegal procedure call on fourth-and-2 insured that – and then a 40-yard field-goal attempt was blocked.

South Portland also struggled to put positive plays together.

Early in the game Nate Ellington sacked Opio, causing a fumble that was recovered by Tyler Small at the Rams’ 12. Looking at a second-and-3 at Deering’s 5, South Portland was called for consecutive illegal procedures and then Poole was sacked by Wenston Dinizio and fumbled with Deering’s Josiah Cope recovering.

Steve Craig can be reached at 791-6413 or:

scraig@pressherald.com

Twitter: SteveCCraig


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