TURNER — In years past, Leavitt’s starters have been used to getting their work in for a half, then watching the backups mop things up in the final 24 minutes.
But the Hornets haven’t just been letting teams hang around so far this season. They’ve had some legitimate nail-biters, which is why they welcomed Saturday night’s 52-0 win over Gray-New Gloucester for homecoming, even though it came against an old friend.
In one half of action, Leavitt’s starters rolled up 332 yards of total offense while limiting Gray-New Gloucester to just one first down. Despite the truncated playing time, the Hornets (3-0) were still able to get most of their weapons involved, with rushing touchdowns from Conor O’Malley (8 carries, 115 yards), Nate Rousseau (6 carries, 39 yards) and Nate Coombs (4 carries, 53 yards).
Quarterback Tyler Chicoine (8-for-16, 104 yards) added two touchdown passes of 18 yards apiece to Sam Green and Mitchel Davis as Leavitt opened up a 26-0 lead through one quarter and 38-0 at the half.
“It’s fun getting a chance to watch everybody else play,” Davis said. “This was more about us improving over the next few weeks.”
“You never know when one of us starters is going to go down. You’ve always got to have a guy ready to stick in there,” said Sleeper, who led a defense that allowed only 24 yards in the first half.
The Hornets didn’t waste any time putting pressure on the Patriots, going for it on 4th-and-3 from Gray-New Glocuester’s 11 on their first possession. Adam Poulin not only picked up the first down but found the goal line for a 6-0 lead.
A pair of Patriots fumbles in the first quarter, recovered by Matt Roddy and O’Malley, set up Green’s leaping catch in the back right corner of the end zone and Davis’ one-handed snag in the middle of the end zone.
O’Malley added a 60-yard touchdown run, Rousseau a nine-yard scoring run and Coombs a one-yard TD plunge before the half was over. Gray-New Gloucester didn’t get its first first down until the final play of the first half.
“We just wanted to play solid defense,” Sleeper said. “We’re a pretty good defensive team and we just wanted to work on a new package and get better for the coming weeks. We just focused on us this week, getting better as a team.”
The game was the first time the Hornets faced Gray-New Gloucester and coach Jim Hersom, who served as an assistant coach at Leavitt and whose son, Jordan, played quarterback at Leavitt and won the Fitzpatrick Trophy in 2012.
“We wanted to play hard in the first half,” Leavitt coach Mike Hathaway said. “After halftime, we wanted to stay healthy and come out and look at some of the guys on our second unit. We’re still trying to settle things on the depth chart. We’ve been a little unlucky with JV games. Our JV’s have only played once. It was nice for those guys to get a chance to show what they can do on homecoming.”
John Rousseau and Julian Kirouac led the second unit with touchdown runs of 27 and three yards, respectively, in the second half.
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