READFIELD — Dean Plante has said all year that his team wouldn’t be shaken and wouldn’t eulogize when it finally allowed its first points.
Well, those first points came before the Old Orchard Beach football team could blink Friday — but just like their head coach expected, the Seagulls quickly put that behind them to deliver another blowout.
OOB saw its shutout streak come to an end but still bowled over Maranacook for a 66-19 victory in a key Small School South game. Wes Gallant (307 rush yards, four total touchdowns) and Riley Provencheur (two punt-return touchdowns, two receiving touchdowns) led the way as the defending state champ Seagulls stayed unbeaten.
“Everybody talks about the scoring streak, and honestly, when he scored, it was no big deal to us,” said OOB head coach Dean Plante. “They have a good offense, and the chances of them scoring were pretty realistic. At the end of the day, what matters is that we still had a dominant performance.”
After outscoring opponents 328-0 over the first five weeks, it took just 13 seconds for Old Orchard Beach to fall behind. Owen Dunn took the opening kickoff back 70 yards for Maranacook (4-2), which found itself off to a roaring start after a tough 28-22 loss to Dirigo a week prior.
OOB, though, bounced back immediately as Gallant capped off a five-play, 57-yard drive with a 16-yard touchdown run. The Seagulls (6-0) would then lead 22-7 with 5:39 remaining in the first quarter as Provencheur notched punt-return scores of 70-80 yards to turn the momentum quickly.
“With the kickoff return right out of the get-go, we did have that momentum, but when they come back and score a touchdown and then get two on kick returns, that momentum is gone,” said Maranacook head coach Skip Bessey. “That was deflating, and the momentum shifted, and we just couldn’t get it back.”
Old Orchard Beach’s Wesley Gallant runs for his team’s first touchdown against Maranacook during a football game Friday in Readfield. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal
Plante then stretched OOB’s lead with touchdown passes of 33 yards to Gallant late in the first quarter and 29 yards to Provencheur midway through the second. Maranacook answered with a 27-yard pass from Kody Goucher to Dunn, but the Seagulls found the end zone twice more to take a 46-13 lead into the break.
Gallant had touchdown runs of 62 and 24 yards in the second half to push the game into running time. James Dionne capped off OOB’s big offensive night witha 57-yard touchdown late in the third quarter before Goucher (5 of 9, 99 yards, two touchdowns) found Dunn from 31 yards out with three minutes left for the final points.
OOB quarterback Brady Plante completed 9 of 10 passes for 163 and three scores. He was aided in the receiving game by Provencheur, whose three reception for 54 yards and two scores included a touchdown catch that saw him rip the ball away from Maranacook’s Gabe Jacobs in the end zone to put the Seagulls up 34-7.
“(Having a player like him) takes so much stress away from my job,” Brady Plante said. “I throw it up to him, and I know it’s not getting intercepted; either he’s coming down with it, or he’s breaking it up. That’s just what he did — he took the ball right away from that kid. He’s a specimen.”
OOB wasn’t just unfazed by Maranacook ending the shutout streak; they almost welcomed it. No, it wasn’t happy to have conceded points, but after all the talk that had surrounded the remarkable run, there was something to be said for being able to put it behind them.
“That was kind of perfect to go and get that out of the way the first play of the game,” Brady Plante said. “We weren’t thinking about, ‘OK, end of the game, we still can’t let them score.’ Kudos to our defense because they only allowed one touchdown after that until late. They still played great.”
The biggest difference in the game, Bessey said, was Maranacook’s inability to match OOB up front. He was proud of his team’s physicality, but just as the Seagulls’ skill players showed off their speed in the open field, their linemen were also quicker off the snap.
“They’re not that big, but they’re athletic, and they move very well,” Bessey said. “They’re fast everywhere, but they’re especially fast on the lines. Up front, we had the size on them, but their front four were a little too quick for our guys. We weren’t prepared for that, and we didn’t know how to fix it.”
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