AUGUSTA – A little trickery and some second-half resilience went a long way for the Cony football team Friday night.
Riley Geyer ran 27 times for 152 yards and three touchdowns, Dakota Andow connected with Colin Manning for a pair of scores on trick plays, and the Class B Rams pulled away in the second half for a 44-28 win over Class A Lewiston at Alumni Field.
Cony, which saw a 23-0 lead whittled down to 23-14 by halftime before surging to the finish, improved to 4-0. Lewiston, which turned the ball over on its first three drives and five times overall, fell to 1-3.
“It shows who we are as a team,” Manning said. “We let them come back for a bit, then we came back and swung hard. I’m happy with the win.”
Momentum had started to tilt toward Lewiston’s side when the teams came out for the second half, and it threatened to build even further when Cony drove to the Lewiston 10-yard line but turned the ball over on downs.
Manning, who had a big first half offensively, then made a big play on the other side of the ball, picking off a Kameron Caron pass two plays later to put the Rams at the Lewiston 11. Geyer finished the job on the next play, rumbling into the end zone for a 31-14 Cony lead.
“When we missed tackles they made us pay, and they were able to work their way back into the game at the half,” Cony coach B.L. Lippert said. “We were able to make some plays and Colin had a big interception there.”
Lewiston answered right back in stunning fashion when Danny May turned a simple short pass on a 3rd-and-27 from the Blue Devils 34 into a 66-yard touchdown and a 31-22 score, but the Rams didn’t buckle. Cony extended the lead on the first play of the fourth quarter when Geyer (16-of-23, 150 yards) found Adrian Larrabee (eight catches, 95 yards) on a slant that the senior turned into a 33-yard touchdown and 37-22 advantage.
After a Cony hold, a 3-yard Geyer touchdown run made it 44-22. Ben Pelletier’s 6-yard run for Lewiston rounded out the scoring with 3:16 to play.
“Lewiston rallied there, and that’s the sign of a good team that (we were) able to finish it off,” Lippert said.
The game couldn’t have gotten off to a more dazzling start for Cony, as the Rams dipped into the furthest reaches of their playbook from the opening drive. On the fifth play from scrimmage, Geyer tossed back to Andow, who in turn heaved a pass downfield to a streaking Manning.
The play worked perfectly, as Manning was wide open and gathered the pass for a 25-yard touchdown pass and a 7-0 Cony lead.
Cony found points on its next two drives, first with a 23-yard Kyle Douin field goal and then with a 3-yard Geyer touchdown run, but the Rams got creative again on their fourth possession. After an Andow interception set Cony up at the Lewiston 35, Geyer handed off to Larrabee on what looked like a jet sweep, only for Larrabee to toss the ball back to Andow coming from the other side.
This time, Lewiston had Manning accounted for downfield, but once again, it didn’t matter. Andow’s throw found Manning enough in stride for the junior to make the grab and outrun the pursuing defenders for a touchdown, putting Cony ahead 23-0 with 11:31 left in the half.
“On the first touchdown, I was worried I was going to drop it. And on the second one, I’m surprised I even caught it,” Manning said. “It was nerve-wracking.”
The thought process for the guy throwing the ball?
“Don’t (mess) it up for the team,” Andow said. “Coach will yell at you. … The first one I didn’t know if I had time to throw it, so it was a little duck. The second one … I was trying to lead him to the middle of the field where there was no one, and Colin made a play for us.”
And then, with Cony on the verge of making the night a runaway, Lewiston answered. The Blue Devils responded on the next drive, going 65 yards in 10 plays, the last being a 24-yard run around the right end by Dylon Jackson (14 carries, 64 yards) for a score to cut the gap to 23-8.
A Geyer fumble on the next series gave Lewiston a short field, and the Blue Devils capitalized on the momentum, with a 27-yard run by Kameron Caron (nine carries, 77 yards) bringing them back into the Rams’ red zone. Cony’s defense stiffened to force a 4th-and-7 from the 15, but Caron found tight end Deon Hunt with a perfect fade route into the right corner, trimming the deficit to 23-14 with 2:54 left in the half.
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