ORONO, Maine — The Maine Central Institute football team is giving new meaning to taking early control of a football game.
One week after jumping out to a 50-0 halftime advantage in their season opener against Washington Academy of East Machias, the defending LTC champion Huskies from Pittsfield outscored Orono 53-0 over the first two periods en route to a 67-0 Class D North victory over the Red Riots on Friday night.
Coach Tom Bertrand’s club induced fumbles on two of Orono’s first five plays from scrimmage and quickly turned them into touchdowns that sparked a 27-point first quarter. Similar two-way dominance in the second period led to the state’s new running-time rule — used after intermission if the game’s point differential is 35 or greater — to be employed throughout the second half.
“Our goal is to come out and set the tone, and we accomplished that tonight,” said MCI senior quarterback Greg Vigue, who completed 4 of 7 passes for 147 yards and two touchdowns before sitting out the final two quarters.
“We made some big plays that resulted in some points and we got up early, and that gave us some momentum. We want to keep that going forward into the next few weeks as we progress in the season.”
Two of those big plays were Vigue’s touchdown strikes. The first was a 16-yard pass to Aaron Noonan less than three minutes into the game, which was followed 89 seconds later by Eli Bussell’s 26-yard fumble return to the end zone to give MCI a quick 14-0 advantage.
Vigue added a 65-yard scoring pass to Braden Monteryo with 2:12 left before intermission that made it 40-0.
Eleven different MCI ball carriers also combined to rush for 302 yards on 46 attempts while the Huskies’ defense limited Orono to 29 total yards.
Speedy junior Willie Moss led the MCI ground game with 150 yards and three touchdowns on 10 first-half carries, including back-to-back scoring runs of 58 and 30 yards within a 23-second span in the final minute of the second quarter — the first after an Orono punt and the second after MCI recovered a fumbled kickoff after that touchdown.
“They’re one of the top three or four teams in the league, we think, and we knew we needed to come out and jump on top and not let it become a football game because they’re a very well-coached team with some good athletes,” said Bertrand, whose team has outscored its first two opponents by a combined 131-0. “We just needed to be physical and execute what we do and we were able to do that and capitalize on the opportunities we had.”
Senior fullback Alex Bertrand added touchdown runs of 9 and 1 yards for MCI, while reserve backs Pedro Matos and Jeff Boutwell each scored from 3 yards out in the second half as the Huskies displayed their depth.
“This year we’ve got more than 55 kids, which is the most I’ve seen in a long time,” said Vigue. “With that we can work more guys in during practice and that makes us better when we get out on the field. We can get a lot more guys in, keep legs fresh and that benefits us in every way.”
