The Bangor High School football team seemingly had grabbed the momentum in the final minute of their Class A regular-season finale against Oxford Hills of South Paris on Friday night.
A 5-yard touchdown pass from Max Clark to Eli Bradford had drawn the Rams within 13-7 with 48.2 seconds left in the second quarter, and Bangor was set to receive the second-half kickoff with a chance to score again.
But those final few seconds proved game-changing, as Oxford Hills got a 41-yard touchdown pass from Wyatt Knightly to J.J. Worster just before the break to start a run of 21 unanswered points that propelled the Vikings to a 34-7 victory.
The win, combined with Bonny Eagle’s 34-20 victory over Sanford, may move Oxford Hills into fourth place in the final Crabtree points, meaning the Vikings would host a Class A quarterfinal next weekend.
“That would be a big difference maker for us,” said Oxford Hills senior running back Colby VanDecker, who rushed for 170 yards and two touchdowns on 23 carries. “We play well at our home field and it would be good for our seniors to be back on our home field again because we didn’t know if we would get there.”
Bangor, which was tied for fifth place with Oxford Hills entering the contest, is 4-5 and likely will play at No. 3 Scarborough in the quarters.
Oxford Hills scored on its first two possessions to build a 13-0 first-quarter lead on a 24-yard touchdown run by Ty LaBlond and a 32-yard scoring pass over the middle from Knightly to Isaiah Oufiero.
But Bangor used a 6-minute, 38-second drive that featured 57 passing yards from Clark — the last five a beautiful fade pattern to Bickford behind an Oxford Hills defender deep in the right side of the end zone — to rally within six points and leave itself poised to make the game even closer after intermission.
But Oxford Hills suddenly found itself with great field position when Cade Truman recovered a hard-struck squib kickoff at the 50-yard line with still 45.3 seconds left on the clock.
LaBlond ran a first-down sweep to the 41, then Knightly found Worster wide open behind the defense on a second-down seam pattern, with Worster racing to the endzone to make it 20-7 with 24.3 seconds left.
“We kind of saw their safety biting all night so when we ran a fake outside run play and the safety bit down there was no one deep to cover me and I was wide open,” Worster said. “I was just thinking ‘Catch the ball,’ and then when I caught the ball, ‘Don’t get tackled on the 2.’”
It was a backbreaker for Bangor, and a new beginning for Oxford Hills.
“When we got that short field, we thought let’s see what we could do,” Oxford Hills coach Mark Soehren said. “We knew our outside run was working so we ran that outside play and they bit down on it so then we called our play-action off it and Wyatt made a great throw and J.J. made a great catch.”
Bangor drove from its 31 to the Oxford Hills 19 before being stopped on downs to open the second half. Then the Vikings’ ground game took over.
VanDecker, limited to 33 yards on 10 first-half carries, rushed for 137 yards after intermission, including a 61-yard touchdown sprint on Oxford Hills’ next possession.
VanDecker looked to be stopped after a short gain on the second-down play from the Bangor 39 but kept his legs churning and suddenly was running in open space dashing to the endzone to give the Vikings a 27-7 cushion with 3:20 left in the third quarter.
“A few guys crashed in, I hit them and all of a sudden I was out in the open and gone,” said VanDecker, who scored the game’s final touchdown on an 8-yard run with 7:04 left in the game.
Knightly, a sophomore playing quarterback for Oxford Hills in the absence of injured junior Atticus Soehren (shoulder), completed 8 of 14 passes for 131 yards with two touchdowns and one interception to complement the Vikings’ 250 rushing yards.
Clark completed 15 of 26 passes for 150 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions for Bangor, but Oxford Hills’ interior defense, led by Worster, tackle Dylan Rawlings and linebackers Isaiah and Noah Oufiero and and David Dingley, limited the Rams to 44 rushing yards on 30 carries.
