TURNER — The way Leavitt figured it, there wasn’t much to learn from last week’s loss to MDI.
“Really, we just washed it away,” Hornets coach Mike Hathaway said. “We didn’t really talk about it a lot.
“We told them, you should be anxious to get back on the field, and prove to people that’s not how you play football.”
The Hornets seemed eager and excited to play, and romped to a 35-16 win over Morse in the final regular-season game of the year Friday night.
Morse moved the ball well, pretty much at-will, its first two drives, but both possessions ended on fumbles deep in Leavitt territory.
Quarterback Tim Albert and the Hornets wasted little time in turning those turnovers into touchdowns.
On the fourth play of the first drive, Albert, who missed the MDI game with an injury, found a wide-open Oren Shaw for a 54-yard touchdown pass.
The second drive started with a 36-yard run by Bryce Hudson. That was followed by a 42-yard pass from Albert to Shaw down to the Morse 3-yard line. Hudson took it in from there, and Leavitt had a quick 14-0 lead.
“The guys seeing Timmy out there chucking it around, that gave us a bit lift, too,” Hathaway said.
Leavitt’s first two possessions went 148 yards on seven plays.
“We made some mistakes early on,” Shipbuilders coach Jason Darling said. “The last couple of weeks we’ve taken care of the ball well, and we didn’t to that tonight, and good teams like Leavitt are going to capitalize on that.”
Albert’s (2-for-2, 96 yards) night was over after that. The senior gave way to freshman Wyatt Hathaway.
“We just wanted to see what he could do out there,” Mike Hathaway said. “He’s still kind of on the mend, but they said he could play a little bit tonight, and hopefully he can play a little bit more next week.”
Leavitt (7-1), the top seed in Class C South, opens the postseason at home next week against eighth-seed Yarmouth (2-6).
Staked to a 14-0 lead, the Hornets’ defense finally started to swarm, holding the Shipbuilders to just one first down the rest of the first half.
“We definitely got the energy up, everybody got going, got used to the game, what the flow was, and everybody just checked in and did what they’re supposed to do,” Hudson, a linebacker, said.
The Leavitt offense, meanwhile, continued to sting. Hathaway led the Hornets on a four-play, 80-yard drive that finished with a 29-yard run by Bradley Moreau that made the score 21-0.
Leavitt finally burned some clock on its final possession of the half, taking 12 plays to go 85 yards. The drive concluded in the end zone off a 23-yard pass by Hathaway to Camden Jordan with 19 seconds left before halftime, making the lead 27-0 at the break.
The Hornets scored on their first drive of the second half when Hathaway rolled right and heaved a pass to Damion Calder for a 40-yard touchdown that finished Leavitt’s scoring.
Hathaway completed 6-of-10 passes for 120 yards, with two touchdowns and an interception. He left the game in the fourth quarter with an injury.
The Hornets gained 451 yards total offense, 236 on the ground and 216 through the air.
Hudson had a team-high 124 yards on 10 carries. He also intercepted a pass on defense.
“Our line did it again,” Hudson said. “Time after time, you hear people talking about how our line’s great, and it’s true. I love running behind these guys.”
The Shipbuilders (6-2) finally reached the end zone in the fourth quarter, doing so twice: a 7-yard run by Sebastian Tibbetts set up by a 55-yard halfback pass from Tibbetts to Parker Onorato, and an 86-yard run by Austin Baltazar.
Baltazar racked up 164 yards on 24 carries.
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