Bonny Eagle 56

Biddeford 20

The Bonny Eagle football team was in mid season form Friday night as they rolled to a 56-20 win over Biddeford in a preseason exhibition game in Standish. The Scots got contributions from their first and second offenses while the Tigers struggled on both sides of the ball.

The Scots wasted little time getting things started. The Tigers began the game with the ball but Darren Lovley intercepted a pass from Justin Gelinas to give Bonny Eagle control. Three plays later, the Scots were in the end zone when Josh Ruby rumbled in from the 2 and it was 6-0 Bonny Eagle. Quarterback Joe Davis shouldered the bulk of the load on the drive with a 24 yard run.

“I give a lot of credit to coach Cooper and the program he has at Bonny Eagle,” said Biddeford coach Scott Descoteaux. “I think they are one of the best in the league and I think we saw tonight how athletic they can be. As far as my team I told my guys I’m not interested in the score. It’s still preseason and we’re still coming off two-a-day practices.”

After the ensuing kickoff was fumbled, the Scots took control in the Biddeford end of the field. Several short gains resulted in a fourth and five. Davis faked a hand off and took the ball himself up the middle and into the end zone. After the extra point, the Scots led 13-0.

Biddeford answered right back with a quick score of their own. The big play came on third and three when Gelinas handed the ball off to Nate Curran who scampered around the right side 57 yards down to the Bonny Eagle goal line. From there Ethan Scott punched it in to cut the lead to 13-6.

“In the first half we made a few mistakes,” said Bonny Eagle coach Kevin Cooper. “As a team we’re still searching for that elusive perfection and we didn’t quite hit it in the first half. We played well at times and not so well at other times. We need to keep getting better. We did some good things and some things we need improvement on. We’ll grow from this and hopefully get better.”

In the second quarter the Scots stretched their lead with two touchdowns. The first came just six seconds into the quarter when John Onesti ran six yards up the middle for a score to make it 20-6. The second Bonny Eagle touchdown of the quarter came with 9:55 to play. Nate Doehler, who came in at quarterback in the second, ran one for 26 yards.

Between the two Bonny Eagle scores, Biddeford scored again on a pass from Gelinas to Audie Murphy in the corner of the end zone. At the time that made the score 20-12 in favor of the Scots.

“I’m interested in working hard every day to get better,” said Descoteaux. “If I ask these guys to do something they do it 100 percent. I asked them to play with some intensity and they did that. There were some good things and some bad things, but there was some improvement. We aren’t where we need to be but we’re getting there. We have a great group of kids who do what we ask them to. We’ll come back and get better.”

The Scots came out in the third quarter for one last drive with their starters and scored on three plays. The biggest play came from a 37 yard run by Ruby. Lovley then ran the ball into the end zone to make it a 34-12 lead for the Scots. They went on the score twice more in the third and once again in the fourth. The Tigers scored once more late in the fourth.

“I was very pleased with how we played in the second half,” said Cooper. “We set a goal at halftime to come out on the first drive. We were going to play one drive with our first team and we set a goal to score and we did we did that very quickly. I was pleased with our backups because they kept it going they did a good job getting points of their own.”

Ryan Nason, Wade Severance and Max Alfiero accounted for the final three Bonny Eagle touchdowns. Tyler Parker scored the final touchdown for the Tigers.

With the preseason now in the books both teams get ready for the regular season. The Tigers will host Scarborough and the Scots will take on Cheverus. Last year the Tigers finished 6-2 but were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. As far as a return to the playoffs, Descoteaux says he isn’t thinking about it.

“I have two goals,” he said. “I want to run a first class program. I want my kids to be first class in how they conduct themselves off and on the field. My second goal is I want to improve every day. I don’t talk about three months from now. I don’t know what’s going to happen it’s out of our hands. What we can control is what we’re doing and thats improving and conducting ourselves with class. If we do that every day those small steps will improve into large steps along the way. But we’re taking it day by day and its all about improving and thats what we need to do.”

The Scots finished the regular season at 8-0 last year but were knocked out in the second round of the playoffs. Prior to last year Bonny Eagle won two straight state championships. Cooper says his team has the potential to contend for a third.

“I think we have a very good team,” Cooper said. “I told the guys ‘if we ever get to that goal of really playing well then we’re going to be very good.’ We’ve got a lot of weapons right now and I think if we continue to grow we have a chance to contend for a state championship.”