KENNEBUNK — After losing by the score of 14-12 in each of its first two games, and seeing late breaks go the opponent’s way both times, the Kennebunk football team may have felt it was due a little fourth-quarter fortune when it found itself trailing a plucky Oceanside squad by two points with three minutes to go Saturday.

Thanks to the left arm of quarterback Donovan Connor, the Rams did conjure up some last-ditch magic of their own, and got into the win column as a result.

Down 22-20 and with the ball at his own 21-yard line, Connor marched Kennebunk 79 yards in 2:10 for the winning score, completing three big passes along the way ”“ including a 16-yard TD to Thomas Wildes with 26.2 seconds left ”“ as the Rams escaped with a 28-22 victory over the Mariners in front of a large Homecoming crowd at Veterans Memorial Field.

With the victory, Kennebunk avoided its first 0-3 start in more than a decade, a fate that did befall Oceanside, which remains in the cellar of Western Class B.

“Over the years we’ve had some ugly wins, and we’ll take this one,” said Kennebunk coach Joe Rafferty, whose team committed two turnovers, had one major special teams breakdown and made several costly mental mistakes. “We badly needed it; we both did coming in here at 0-2 and I’m just happy that we hung in there.”

Connor, a junior who has started the opening three games in place of an injured Kip Richard, had been just 1-of-6 passing for a total of nine yards before the final drive. But much like last week, when he orchestrated a 74-yard scoring drive in the final minutes against York before a potential tying two-point conversion pass fell short, Connor came up big when the Rams needed him the most.

“He made some key throws down the stretch when we needed him,” Rafferty said of Connor. “He’s competitive, he kept his poise and did a great job. He delivered when he had to.”

“I was just thinking to stay composed and do what I could,” Connor said of the last drive. “I knew we had the skill to get down there, we just all had to do our jobs.”

Connor wouldn’t have gotten the chance without a vital late stop by the Rams defense, which got the ball back with 2:36 remaining thanks to a Justin Wiggins interception that prevented a potential clinching score for the Mariners.

Kennebunk got its final drive off to an inauspicious start with an incomplete pass and a short Nolan Ragnarsson run, setting up third and long. But the Rams then received the bit of luck they needed when Wildes was stopped in the backfield but hauled down by his facemask to gift Kennebunk a first down at its own 41.

Two plays later, Connor completed his longest pass of the game, finding tight end Jake Boothby open over the middle for a 32-yard gain. After a 1-yard run by Ragnarsson, Connor found Wildes in the flat for 12 yards to get the ball down to the 16.

With the clock ticking below 30 seconds, Connor then completed the drive with his best throw of the afternoon, floating a pass towards Wildes in the end zone. As his defender backtracked, Wildes went up and high-pointed the ball just over the goal line, with Sean Brannen then running in the 2-point conversion to give Kennebunk a decisive six-point advantage.

“We were just going with of our vertical route plays,” Connor said. “I knew Thomas was going to be there and he made an unbelievable catch.”

“We were practicing that play all week and I hadn’t been doing too hot on it,” said Wildes, who led the Rams with 110 yards on 19 carries on the ground. “But that one stuck and that’s all we needed. I was just in the zone and went up for the ball.”

In the first-ever meeting between the two schools a year ago, Kennebunk went up to Rockland and cruised to a 63-6 victory.

Early on Saturday, a much different Kennebunk team nevertheless looked in for another cake walk, as the Mariners fumbled on their first play from scrimmage. The Rams took advantage immediately as Brannen (10 carries, 97 yards) ran in untouched from 22 yards out to make the score 6-0 after just 16 seconds.

“Last year we blew them out, and honestly I thought this was going to be pretty easy,” Wildes said. “We got that first touchdown pretty easily, but they really hit us in the second quarter.”

Oceanside showed it wouldn’t go nearly as quietly this time around, stuffing Kennebunk’s next drive inside the red zone and then taking an 8-6 lead with 2:01 left in the half when quarterback Ryan Allender found Elvis Bowen in the end zone on a 25-yard fade pass, with Christian Vitale catching the two-point conversion.

The Rams replied with their best drive of the half, going 65 yards in just 97 seconds to retake the lead, 12-8. It started with a Wildes 39-run down to the Mariners 26, and finished on a fourth-and-four from the nine, when Donovan made his only completion of the first 45 minutes by finding Brannen out of the backfield for a TD.

The Mariners again showed they wouldn’t go away, forcing Kennebunk into a three-and-out on the opening drive after halftime and then driving for a score as Preston Spear broke two tackles on a 33-yard TD run to put the Mariners back up 14-12.

Kennebunk responded once again, going on a nine-play, 64-yard drive capped by a Patrick Saunders 3-yard TD run and a Wildes two-point conversion rush to take a 20-14 lead.

But Spear came up with another big play as he caught the ensuing kickoff at his own 20-yard line and didn’t stop until he was in the end zone 80 yards later, slicing through the Rams’ kickoff coverage and then running in the conversion as the Mariners retook the lead, 22-20, with 2:37 left in the third.

“I almost died when they ran back that kickoff. It was like you’ve got to be kidding me,” Rafferty said. “We said all week long what not to do, and that’s not what we did.”

Oceanside’s defense then came up big, stopping all of the Rams’ next three drives inside opposition territory and getting the ball back with 5:22 remaining when Bowen recovered Ragnarsson’s fumble at the Mariners’ 46-yard line.

But with Allender out of the game after a third-quarter injury on defense, the Mariners gained just 20 yards and one first down on 11 fourth-quarter plays, with backup quarterback Anthony Moore making the crucial mistake on a second-and-11 from the Rams’ 43 with Oceanside just three minutes away from victory.

Rolling to his left, Moore was nearly to the sideline when he attempted to throw back across his body towards the center of the field. Looking for Bowen deep, he instead was intercepted by Wiggins.

From there, Connor led Kennebunk to the winning score and stopped the Rams’ late-game hex in its tracks.

“We definitely didn’t play our best, but we played well enough to get the W and that’s all that really matters,” Connor said. “We couldn’t be 0-3 after today. That would have hurt us really badly.”

— Staff Writer Cameron Dunbar can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 323 or [email protected].