FAIRFIELD — The Lawrence High School football team suffered a lopsided loss at Marshwood last week, but coach John Hersom saw some things he felt would help his team in later games.
“We got right to work on Monday. We knew coming off that trip down to Marshwood we actually saw better emotion down there, something we could build on,” Hersom said. “The kids, I think were fairly determined to play better football. Especially playing at home.”
Home at Keyes Field on Friday night against Brewer, Lawrence excelled in all three phases of the game. The result was a 46-8 win over the Witches, the first win of the season for a Bulldogs team that has eyes on the Pine Tree Conference Class B title.
Lawrence (1-2) jumped on the Witches early, capitalizing on a pair of Brewer (0-3) turnovers in the first quarter to build a 13-0 lead. First, the Bulldogs recovered a Brewer fumble on the Witches first play from scrimmage, giving Lawrence the ball at the Brewer 20. Two plays later, Isaiah Schooler scored on a 2-yard run to the corner, and Zack Nickerson’s kick gave Lawrence a 7-0 lead.
Brewer moved the ball into Lawrence territory on its next possession, but the drive stalled when Dylan Coombs picked off a Brandon Glidden pass at the Lawrence 14. From there, the Bulldogs went 86 yards in seven plays, scoring when Coombs connected with Nickerson on a 19-yard touchdown pass.
Kyle Carpenter scored on a 13-yard run with 9:12 in the second quarter to push the Lawrence lead to 20-0. After forcing a Brewer three and out, Schooler returned the ensuing punt 65 yards for a touchdown and a 27-0 lead. Seeing plenty of space to run, Schooler picked the punt up on a bounce and took off, going down the right sideline untouched for the score.
“Nobody was close. I knew there was nobody on the (right) sideline because they had both their gunners on one side, and it was pretty much a clear path,” said Schooler, who ran for 96 yards on 11 carries and added a 42-yard punt return in the third quarter.
Defensively, the key for Lawrence was containing Brewer’s power running game. To do that, Lawrence turned away from its usual defensive formation to stack the line of scrimmage. While Andrew Kiley led Brewer with 74 yards on 21 carries, nothing came easy for the Witches.
“We felt like we had to get at least enough bodies on the line of scrimmage to hold up to their line, which appeared to be a little bit bigger than ours,” Hersom said. “We felt we had the personnel to do it, and it turned out to hold up pretty well.”
Lawrence led 33-0 at the half, and Carpenter (78 yards on five carries) scored his third touchdown of the game with 9:07 to play to make it 40-0 Bulldogs.
The Witches got on the board with 3:16 to play, when Logan Levensalor scored on a 5-yard run.
Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242
Twitter: @TLazarczykMTM
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