AUGUSTA — Head coach of a team that’s always in the mix in the Pine Tree Conference, B.L. Lippert has done his share of winning over the years.

Friday, though, saw Lippert’s Cony football team win a game that meant much more in the context of the week and the season. Five days after the unexpected passing of Lippert’s sister, Melissa, the Rams dominated Bangor 55-20 in a stunning offensive showing.

Cony amassed a school-record 653 yards in the victory. Sophomore quarterback Parker Morin accounted for the majority of those yards through the air, completing 26 of 35 passes for five touchdowns and a state-record 480 yards in just three quarters of play.

“It was unbelievable,” Lippert said. “I’ve coached roughly 190 games as a coach and offensive coordinator, and I’ve never had a night quite like that. It felt like my sister was watching over us and the kids were playing for my family. They played some pretty inspired football.”

It’s been a challenging year at times for Cony (3-3), which has battled injuries as a young team this season. The Rams started the season 1-3 with the three losses by a combined 64 points and were a play or two away from starting 1-4 before ultimately pulling out a 27-26 overtime win over Mt. Blue.

Friday, though, was by far the best Cony has looked all season. The 55 points were more than twice as many as the Rams had scored in a game, and the five-touchdown win came against a Bangor team that began its season by beating a Lawrence squad that beat Cony 40-7 in Week 4.

After word got out in the Cony community about his sister’s passing, Lippert addressed his team prior to Thursday’s practice. Football, he told his players, has always been a game about love to him, and the most prolific performance in program history was a sign they echoed that sentiment.

“I just told them, ‘This game is about love: loving your teammates and loving your community,’” Lippert said. “That night was going to be a night where we went and showed how much we love each other as a community and as a football team, and they played with that extra motivation.”

Melissa Lippert, whose initials “ML” appeared on a helmet sticker of every Cony player Friday, was one of the Rams’ biggest fans. Living 3,000 miles away in Los Angeles, she still watched every available live stream and would frequently call her brother or their parents after games to discuss the action.

Cony’s youth night brought an even bigger crowd to Fuller Field as younger players and their parents turned out for the game. Former Cony players also showed up in support of Lippert, who said the inspiration from both the crowded stands and his players’ spirited play provided, however small, a bit of healing.

“There were the emotions of her not being around — I couldn’t talk to her after the game — but the support was amazing,” Lippert said. “The way we played, especially on offense where we haven’t had a real outburst this year, it was kind of surreal. It really did feel like (12 on 11).”

 

• • •

It’s been feast or famine for the Nokomis offense this season, but as September concluded, it felt as if the Warriors were trending more toward the latter. 

The first game of October, though, saw Nokomis keep it simple — and the result was a performance that has the team back on track in Class C North ahead of the regular season’s home stretch.

The Warriors reverted to their old Wing-T formation in Saturday’s 26-18 home victory over Hampden Academy. The four touchdowns marked a stark turnaround from Nokomis’ previous two performances, in which it was shut out by Oceanside and Gardiner.

“After the Gardiner loss and being anemic on offense once again, we pretty much scrapped what we were doing and went back to our roots,” said Nokomis head coach Jake Rogers. “We’ve run the Wing-T at Nokomis before, and we just felt it was the best thing to fit our kids.”

Although Rogers had expected bigger things from the passing game prior to the season, his team’s aerial attack hasn’t really panned out the way he’d hoped. The Warriors’ offense lacked deception, and it was time, Rogers said, to admit that the previous way of things wasn’t working.

The Nokomis players, Rogers said, were more than eager to mix things up. The Warriors put even more emphasis on the ground game with Seth Bowden (99 yards, two touchdowns) and Ryan Robichaud (88 yards, touchdown), who were featured less in the old offense, leading the way.

“When you’re in a one-back (set) trying to run more of a gap scheme, you’re sometimes 7 yards from the line,” Rogers said. “It put our skill guys at a disadvantage and made it hard on the linemen because teams would just come at us. Hampden came at us, too, but some of the new things we implemented helped against that.” 

The rainy conditions Saturday played into the hands of a more run-oriented offense, especially given the opposition. Although Hampden, Rogers admitted, is a quicker team than his Warriors, the wet nature neutralized that disadvantage against a team used to playing on its home turf surface.

“They’re a team where, if you get them on a nice day on turf, I don’t like that matchup,” Rogers said. “You have to play in whatever conditions you’re playing in, and it wasn’t easy for us, either — we fumbled three times — but you really saw those scheme changes pay off.”

 

• • •

It was almost unfair, it seemed, how Oak Hill had to start the season. With a young team of just four seniors, the Raiders started off with powerhouses Wells and Foxcroft before taking on a Poland squad with one of the state’s elite defenses.

Since beginning the year 0-3, though, a young Oak Hill team has learned to win. The Raiders have been stout defensively over their past three games, topping Winthrop/Monmouth/Hall-Dale, Freeport and Belfast to improve to .500 on the season.

“We have a young team; we only suited two seniors in our last game, and we’ve had to get our feet under us a little bit,” said Oak Hill head coach Chad Stowell. “Now that we’ve done that and are playing more of a balanced schedule, we’re figuring some things out and getting better.”

Oak Hill scored just six points over its first three weeks as the foes on its front-loaded schedule. Even early on in their Week 4 win over Winthrop/Monmouth/Hall-Dale, the Raiders had some offensive struggles as the Ramblers led them 12-0 until late in the first half in the first game on the Charlie’s Field turf.

That game, though, would ultimately see Oak Hill’s season turn in a positive direction. Led by quarterback Kai Taylor, the Raiders roared back to win that game 20-12. They then built on the momentum from that win to top Freeport 24-16 before shutting out Belfast 24-0 on the coast Friday.

“That was a crack through the ice for us mentally,” Stowell said. “It definitely injected some confidence into our guys. The next week, we were down early against Freeport, but we said, ‘Hey, we know we can bounce back because we just did it last week,’ and we came back and had a really good second half.”

The three-game winning streak has Oak Hill sitting in third place in Class D South. With wins over Winslow and Lisbon — not slam-dunk games but certainly winnable ones — the Raiders would secure a winning season and possibly, with a bit of luck, get a bye to the regional semifinals.

“You look at D South right now, and I think you’ll agree that it’s very, very open,” Stowell said. “You want to be in a spot where you’re peaking at the end of the season, and there are still some learning curves, but we’re getting a lot more consistent across the board.”

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