BREWER, Maine — The Brewer Witches earned their way back to the Class B North football championship game for the second straight year Friday night.
But it took all of a 451-yard rushing effort and some late-game defensive might for coach Nick Arthers’ club to hold off the aerial assault of upset-minded Cony of Augusta.
It wasn’t until senior halfback Trey Wood — who powered through Cony’s defense for 299 yards and two touchdowns on 40 rushes — followed fullback Zach Duncan’s third touchdown of the night with a two-point conversion run with 2:11 remaining was there any certainty to the outcome, as No. 2 Brewer finally emerged with a 44-34 victory over the sixth-ranked Rams.
Brewer (8-1) will play for the regional title at top-ranked and two-time defending champion Brunswick (9-0) next Friday night. Brunswick topped No. 5 Messalonskee of Oakland 44-7 in its semifinal.
Cony, which upset No. 3 Lawrence of Fairfield 28-27 in its quarterfinal last week, finished 4-6.
The upstart Rams served notice that it was a serious player in its semifinal trip to Brewer from the outset, taking a 7-0 lead on its second possession when quarterback Taylor Heath threw an 81-yard touchdown pass down the left sideline to Elijah Dutil with 4:27 left in the first quarter.
Cony never stopped passing.
Heath, a senior, completed 23 of 32 passes for 374 yards and five touchdowns, four to Dutil and the fifth to Jordan Roddy before the Rams were held scoreless in the fourth quarter.
“What was happening was they were outmanning us on the outside,” said Brewer defensive back Tyler Hafford, who had two fourth-quarter interceptions in addition to a go-ahead touchdown reception as time expired in the first half.
“We were just stretched so it was going to come down to one-on-one battles and who was going to win, and when the second half came up, we won.”
Brewer’s late defensive surge was fueled by its play along the line of scrimmage, with Austin Lufkin totaling three of the Witches’ five quarterback sacks.
“Their linemen were getting tired and our guys were definitely getting much better pressure in the second half,” said Lufkin. “Once we started getting the quarterback down on the ground he was getting rid of the ball earlier and our guys were doing a better job in coverage.”
While Brewer’s defense finally found some late-game solutions, Cony’s defense never did solve Brewer’s ground game, particularly Wood, who rushed 22 times for 127 yards in the first half and added 18 carries for 172 yards after intermission.
But when defenses keyed on Wood,
“Our linemen did a great job of opening up the holes,” said Wood, citing the work of linemen Lufkin, Cam Green, Tyler Bean, Garrett Graham and Lucas McLaughlin and tight ends Pedro Rodriguez and Jacob McCluskey. “The fullback obviously opened up some good holes, too.”
Wood gave Brewer its first lead early in the second quarter, racing 13 yards after taking a pitch from quarterback Cody Wood and they adding the two-point conversion run to make it 8-7.
The teams then swapped touchdowns twice over the rest of the quarter, initially with Duncan reaching the end zone for the first time with 1:47 left in the half for a 14-14 stalemate after Heath had hit Dutil with a 10-yard scoring pass.
When a Brewer onside kick failed to go the required 10 yards, Cony got the ball at the Witches’ 46 and needed just 62 seconds to score, with Hatch passing the final 5 yards to Roddy to give Cony a 20-14 lead with 42 seconds left.
That was just enough time for Brewer to go 55 yards to take a 22-20 lead as time expired when Tyler Hafford rose over several Cony defenders in the left side of the end zone to grab a 20-yard scoring pass from Cody Wood. Trey Wood’s two-point run gave the Witches a 22-20 lead.
Trey Wood scored from 28 yards out to make it 28-20 less than four minutes into the second half, but a pair of 34-yard touchdown passes from Hatch to Dutil rallied Cony to a 34-28 lead with 51 seconds left in the third period.
But the cumulative effect of Brewer’s physical line play and punishing rushing attack took its toll over the game’s final 12 minutes.
Lufkin and Graham each had a quarterback sack during the fourth quarter, and that pressure led to Hatch throwing two interceptions, both by Hafford.
Brewer, meanwhile, just kept running, with Duncan adding two more scoring runs. The first, from 5 yards out, was followed by a two-point conversion pass from Cody Wood to Jack Corey to give the Witches a 36-24 lead.
The second, a 15-yard surge up the middle, and Trey Wood’s conversion run, finally put the resilient Rams away.
“They went after a couple of weaknesses on our defensive side tonight,” said Arthers, “but I thought we made pretty good adjustments in the second half and moved a couple of people around and I was much happier with our performance.
“Especially after we got down a couple of points, we really stuck together and showed a lot of heart.”
