TURNER — Leavitt needed only two minutes to score its first touchdown Friday, and rarely slowed down from there.
The top-seeded Hornets scored five touchdowns in the first half and defeated fifth-seeded Wells 46-12 in the Class C South semifinal.
“When you’re off for two weeks, with the bye week, you want to be sharp to start the game, but you never know how it’s going to go,” Leavitt coach Mike Hathaway said. “I thought our kids did a good job, we had a good script going into the game and they knew exactly what we were doing and they did a good job executing.”
Leavitt (7-0) will host No. 2 Cape Elizabeth (8-1) in next week’s regional final.
On the first play from scrimmage Friday, Ben Sirois ran up the middle for 62 yards to get the Hornets into the red zone. Three plays later, Dayton Calder punched it in from 2 yards out to five Leavitt an 8-0 lead about two minutes into the game.
“I saw my blockers leading the hole for me and I followed them and trusted them. They’re my guys,” Calder said.
After the Hornets forced a punt on Wells’ first drive, Noah Carpenter, who spent much of the game alternating with Hunter Hayes as Leavitt’s quarterback, found Sawyer Hathaway for a 48-yard touchdown pass over the top of the defense. Carpenter ran in the two-point conversion to give Leavitt a 16-0 lead with 3:55 left in the first quarter.
Wells had a 46-yard return that put the ball at its own 46-yard line, but the possession ended in another punt.
The Hornets, who defeated Wells 41-0 on Sept. 17, punted on their next drive, their only possession of the first half that didn’t garner points.
Wells turned its stop of the game into its first points of the game. Quarterback Brady Fox passed to Conner Whitten for a 37-yard gain to Leavitt’s 1-yard line. Fox then ran it into the end zone with a strong second effort after an strong initial push by the Hornets’ defensive line, and the Warriors’ deficit was down to 16-6.
On the fourth play of Leavitt’s next drive, Calder ran the ball 66 yards into the end zone, giving Leavitt a 24-6 advantage with 6:44 left in the first half.
“It was a regular run,” Calder, who finished with 84 yards of total offense, said. “I told my linemen to go up and block for me, and they did, and I just ran around them. They think I’m slow, but I show my skills and take off.”
“He’s always big,” Mike Hathaway said of Calder. “Dayton is a playmaker, and that’s just who he is. We are trying to get him into the open field, same with Sirois, you mix that in Trevor Bosse, Hayes, Carpenter, Degan Jordan, Sawyer, they all contributed tonight, and we are just trying to run behind that offensive line.”
Later in the second quarter the Hornets recovered a Warriors fumble to get the ball back at the Wells 36-yard line.
On the next play, Carpenter threw the the ball backwards to Sirois near the sideline, then Sirois threw it down the field to Brett Coburn for a 22-yard gain, setting up a 5-yard touchdown run by Carpenter from the quarterback spot to push Leavitt’s lead to 32-6.
Carpenter finished with 138 all-purpose yards for the Hornets. Whoever lines up at quarterback, Carpenter or Hayes, has several playmakers to give the ball to, whether on a handoff or pass — including each other on most plays. In all, 12 players touched the ball for Leavitt on Friday.
Calder said that he isn’t too concerned about who gets the ball on a given play.
“I couldn’t care less, we are family,” Calder said. “As long as my boys eat, I am fine with that, and as long as we get the win, I’m happy.”
Degan Jordan sacked Fox on third down, forcing a punt, and the Hornets capitalized when Carpenter found Coburn for a 16-yard touchdown to make the 40-6 with 30 seconds left in the first half.
Wells had the ball first after halftime but quickly had to punt. However, the Warriors caught a break when, after the kick, a Leavitt player touched ball with his foot, making it live, and Wells fell on it at the Hornets’ 40-yard line. Later, Fox ran in his second 1-yard touchdown of the game and brought Wells within 40-12 with just over six minutes left in the third quarter.
“Last week, we were down 21-0 and fought back,” Wells coach Tim Roche said. “I am proud of our second half. We have no give-up. We have three seniors, starting three freshmen, and I am very proud. We lost our guard this week and had to take a senior running back and put him at guard. We fought our butts off all game.”
Leavitt attempted a trick play on fourth down during its next drive. Carpenter, who lined up at receiver, went in motion in front of the quarterback, Hayes, and took the snap while no other player moved. Carpenter came up a yard short of the first down, giving the ball back to the Warriors.
Wells punted, but then its defense recovered a fumble at the Hornets’ 36-yard line with nine minutes left in the game. The Warriors picked up a quick first down, but sacks by Leavitt’s Jack Boutaugh and Reeve Twitchell forced another punt with 6:30 left in the game.
“I thought after the first couple plays (our defense) played pretty downhill,” Mike Hathaway said. “I thought Boutaugh, Twitchell and Josh Chretien were pretty dominant up front, and that’s a tough offense (to face). They’re coming right at you, but there is deception there. There’s not a lot of offenses like that anymore, and now they’re in the minority, so to prepare for that takes work, but they did a good job.”
Colten Taylor, a backup quarterback, capped the Hornets’ scoring with a 5-yard touchdown run that made it 46-12 with 54.5 seconds left in the game.
Wells, typically one of Class C’s top contenders, finishes with a 5-5 record. Roche said the Warriors had to overcome several obstacles throughout the season.
“It’s the weirdest year I’ve ever coached,” Roche said. “You wake up in the morning and hope you have kids that can play. I can’t say it enough how proud I am with the way we fought, and that’s Warrior football. They still came out and fought every time. It’s hard to walk off the field a loser, it’s going to bug me for a while, but we could have fallen down and given up, but they wanted to come back and play.”
Cape Elizabeth advanced to the C South final by defeating third-seeded Fryeburg 33-6 on Friday. The Hornets dealt the Capers their only setback of the season, 39-27 on Oct. 8 in Turner.
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