WALES — Alex Mace ran as if the end of his high school career was staring back at him.
The Oak Hill senior tail back rushed for 38 yards on the Raiders’ go-ahead, 65-yard drive with time winding down in the third quarter as the third-seeded Raiders survived an upset bid from No. 6 Maranacook 7-6 on a cold, rain-drenched Saturday afternoon at Oak Hill High School.
“I just wanted to give it everything I had,” Mace, who finished with 123 yards rushing on 26 carries, said. “I didn’t want to leave anything on the field and same with all the seniors out there — same with everyone out there.
“They didn’t want to leave anything on the field so we just made it happen.”
The game-winning drive for the defending Class D champs began with 6 minutes, 49 seconds left in the third quarter and Maranacook clinging to a 6-0 lead. The first two plays were not all too different from many other Raider possessions Saturday, with Mace plugging forward in the mud for three yards only to get driven back to where the drive began on second down.
“We’re more of a quick-paced team. We have quick backs, we like to make cuts and it just wasn’t in our favor today,” Mace said of the conditions. “I couldn’t make cuts at all so I just kind of took it and ran right behind my line, and they took me all the way.”
On the next play he did just that in rushing for 12 yards and a first down on 3rd-and-10 from the Oak Hill 35-yard, and two plays later he gashed the Black Bears’ defense for another first down on a 13-yard gain.
Senior Kyle Flaherty — who finished with 27 rushes for 73 yards — mixed in with Mace to drive the ball deep into Maranacook territory, but the Raiders’ drive looked in danger of stalling when faced with a 4th-and-4 at the Black Bears’ 9-yard line.
Oak Hill caught a break on the play though, as quarterback Dalton Therrien managed to draw the Black Bears offside with the snap count to convert the first down. Three plays later Flaherty barreled into the end zone from two yards out to tie the game at 6-6.
“We talked to the guys and we said, ‘we have a lot of seniors on this offense and this is your season,'” Oak Hill coach Stacen Doucette said. “‘It’s up to you,’ and they responded.”
Another senior, Adam Merrill, came through with one of — if not the — biggest kicks of his career, striping the extra point straight through the uprights to put the Raiders on top with 1:18 remaining in the third quarter.
“It was fine. I thought it was going to be worse,” Merrill said of the field conditions for the kick. “Just like practice.”
From there Maranacook got two more possessions, but never crossed midfield as the first ended with a punt at its own 47-yard line and the second with an interception.
“From the beginning we thought we could knock them off,” Maranacook junior full back/linebacker Kyle Morand said. “We came in here thinking they could be a little cocky thinking they might have it and we were thinking we could take advantage, get up quick like we did and hold it through.
“We did most of the way. If it weren’t for a few breaks going the wrong way we could have had it.”
While the Black Bears fell short of pulling off the upset in the end, they let Oak Hill know from the opening kickoff that they were not there to simply roll over.
Maranacook opened the game by marching down the field 74 yards on 14 plays in 7 minutes, 4 seconds, with Morand adding the exclamation point with a nine-yard touchdown run.
“We were really pumped up. We were feeling it,” Morand said. “We had the energy going.”
The first drive, however, would also mark the last time Maranacook moved the ball with any efficiency at the offensive end.
The Black Bears attempted the 2-point conversion following the score, but Morand was stopped just shy of the goal line on his rush to the right as he knee touched the ground just prior to the ball crossing the plane.
From that point forward Maranacook ran just 22 offensive plays, gained 14 yards, converted one first down, punted five times and turned the ball over once.
Evan Crawley — 621-5640
ecrawley@mainetoday.com
Twitter: @Evan_Crawley
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