KENNEBUNK — Seniors Thomas Lazos and Ryan Connors waited their turn, playing supporting roles for Kennebunk High’s powerful football program.

Friday night, their patience was rewarded, as revamped Kennebunk gave Cheverus a rude welcome to Class B football in the season opener for both teams.

Lazos was near flawless in the first half of his first start at quarterback. Connors made the game’s decisive play with a 58-yard interception return for a score and rushed for 141 yards. With big contributions from other players getting their chance to shine, the Rams rolled to a 48-13 win.

Not bad for a team that graduated 17 seniors, many of whom had been three-year standouts for a team that reached the state final in 2016 and lost by a point in last year’s Class B South final.

Connors, a wing back and kicker, says he likes to think that he “supplemented” the other backs a year ago. Now he’s a senior captain.

His pick-six made the score 21-7 and halted a promising Cheverus drive. Then, on the second play of the second half, Connors busted an inside trap for a 76-yard score that essentially sealed the win, allowing the deeper Rams to substitute freely against a Cheverus team with 30 players dressed.

“It felt amazing. I’ve been coming to these games for a long time, had brothers play, seen Coach (Joe Rafferty) do his thing, and they’ve had really good teams since like 2013,” Connors said. “You want to be like that. Now that we’re seniors, we’re really getting our shot to try to be that team that takes us back” to a state final.

“I’ve always looked at the end goal and said, ‘If I work hard and do my job, I’ll get my shot,’” said Connors, who also made six of seven extra points.

Lazos had backed up three-year starting quarterback Tripp Bush. He played in varsity “garbage time” and took lots of snaps at the JV level.

In the first half Friday, he was 7 of 7 for 103 yards and two touchdowns and expertly ran the option. He capped the half by directing a 92-yard, 5-minute drive, scoring on an 8-yard run with 19 seconds to play for a 28-7 lead.

“We’ve always been confident in ourselves that once we get the chance, we’ll do good,” Lazos said.

Kennebunk had several others step forward. Junior receiver/back Jacob Sullivan was an understudy to two-time Varsity Maine All-State player Zack Sullivan (no relation). He caught two touchdown passes and rushed for another. Sophomore fullback David York gained 95 yards on 13 carries.

“Considering the number of new faces, I thought we did a great job,” Rafferty said.

Cheverus is one of six former Class A teams that moved to Class B this year. Coming off a 7-3 season, the Stags drove 75 yards and scored on Sean Tompkins’ 10-yard run on the game’s first possession. Tompkins (nine carries, 152 yards) later added a 60-yard touchdown run, but overall the Stags struggled.

“We missed some things that were there,” said Cheverus Coach Mike Vance. “We missed some things in the run game, missed some blocks. We missed some passes. And defensively, we missed a lot of tackles.”

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