WELLS — After completing a perfect regular season and rolling past Poland (49-14) and Winthrop/Monmouth/Hall-Dale (41-22) in the opening rounds of the playoffs, the Wells Warriors are looking to keep it rolling when they host the Class D South regional final tonight.
The No. 1 Wells football team is no stranger to regional championship games. This will be the fifth straight year that the Warriors will be competing in the Southern Maine final — they have won the last two on their way to state championships.
This year’s Wells squad is hoping to continue the program’s recent dominance in regional finals when they welcome in No. 7 Oak Hill at 7 p.m. tonight.
“It’s been a great season. I think so far this season has been just what we dreamed off. Going undefeated is great, it wasn’t necessarily our goal. When we step on the field, we want to win every game. That happened during the progression of the season. We’re happy with where we are right now,” said Wells head coach Tim Roche.
This will be the second meeting between Wells and Oak Hill. During the regular season, the Warriors rolled to a 56-13 victory.
“They’re a tough team. (Their head coach) has done a good job of getting them in the playoffs. They’re the seventh seed and they’ll be playing in the championship game. That’s a great accomplishment,” said Roche.
Oak Hill started strong in the regular-season game against the Warriors.
“When it started, they got the ball and drove right down the field and scored. They were up 7-0. Then we got (the ball) and we scored. Then we held them and scored again, but then they went right down the field again and scored. It was 14-14 in the second quarter. Then we figured some things out and we got on them pretty good,” said Roche.
Roche will rely heavily on standout Tyler Bridge during the championship game.
“Tyler Bridge, he’s the feature kid. He’s got 2,000 yards rushing and about 36 touchdowns, that’s pretty good for 10 games. When we started the playoffs, I told him, ‘great backs step up big in the playoffs’ and he has,” said Roche.
But if Bridge is heavily defended, Roche will be undeterred because the Warriors have several key offensive players who can step up when they need to.
“People forget that we also have kids like Payton MacKay, Matt Tufts, Matt Sherburne, Devin Chace and Jonah Potter that also do things,” said Roche.
Warrior fans should expect to see a full team effort during Friday’s contest.
“In order to do that we need to have an offensive line. Offensively with Dylan Whitney, Cam Barker, Morgan Welch-Thompson, Matt Ouellette and Nate Curtis those guys on the line have come through big time. We wouldn’t be able to do what we do without those kids. While Tyler gets the feature, there’s a lot of kids that do things,” said Roche. “I think we’ve got a lot of weapons out there on both sides of the ball.”
Roche is confident that Wells will secure the championship victory.
“It sounds arrogant but I want our kids to expect to win. I think if you expect anything less of a group of kids, they’ll perform to that level. Our expectations are high and they should be,” said Roche. “I’d like this week, us to put together a game that’s near perfect. I think this group of kids is capable of doing it, we just haven’t done it yet.”
— Sports Writer Sienna Barstow can be reached at sbarstow@journaltribune.com or at 780-9018. Follow the Journal Tribune Sports Department on Twitter @JournalTsports.

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