AUGUSTA — Turns out Parker Morin has plenty of targets not named Parker Sergent.
While the Parker-to-Parker connection has energized the Cony football team’s offense this fall, plenty of other guys got to share the glory in the Rams’ 53-6 rout of Mt. Blue on Tuesday in the Class B North quarterfinals at a chilly Fuller Field.
The third-seeded Rams (6-3), who have won five straight games, visit No. 2 Messalonskee in a semifinal game at 3 p.m. Saturday.
Morin had his usual flashy numbers (14-for-24, 271 yards, five TDs), but it wasn’t the usual receivers who helped him get there. Ethan Demmons had three catches for 104 yards and two touchdowns, plus another on the ground. Jackson Veilleux had seven grabs for 103 yards and a score, and Lance Theriault added two catches for 57 yards and a TD.
Oh, and Sergent, under heavy pressure from Mt. Blue’s defense all night, finagled two catches for 17 yards and a TD of his own.
“They guarded him up, they had a good game plan for him, and that left our other guys open,” Morin said. “I kind of knew teams were going to start looking at him, so I gave some looks to other guys and let them do what they do.”
Morin, Demmons, Veilleux and Theriault are all sophomores, which means the rest of Class B North hasn’t heard the last from this crew.
“The young guys are stepping up when it matters,” Cony coach B.L. Lippert said. “Some really good sophomore players are stepping up.”
Morin wasn’t too shabby on defense, either, as he had one of the Rams’ three interceptions against Mt. Blue quarterback Klay Dunning. Davyn Flynn — a 53-yard pick-six TD in the third quarter — and Sergent also had interceptions, and teammate Josh Kidd recovered a fumble.
Landon Foster kicked five extra points for Cony, which has won five straight games.
Tuesday’s game looked to be close at first. After Demmons gave Cony a quick 7-0 lead on a 34-yard end-around on the Rams’ first drive, Mt. Blue pulled within a point when Dunning (15-for-26, 123 yards), found Dane Cousineau on a screen play for a 3o-yard TD pass with 5:35 left in the first quarter.
But it was all Cony from there, as Veilleux (18 yards), Theriault (48 yards) and Demmons (33 and 53 yards) hauled in TD passes from Morin to give the Rams a 33-6 lead at the half.
Morin displayed his coolness under pressure on first touchdown strike to Demmons midway through the second quarter. On fourth-and-17 from the Mt. Blue 33-yard line, Morin dropped the snap from center, but calmly picked the ball up from the cold, wet turf and fired a perfect arc down the left sideline for Demmons, who dragged a couple of Mt. Blue defenders into the end zone for the score.
“We knew it was going to wet, and it was going to be a little slick, so we had to prepare,” Morin said. “I knew if I picked the ball up, someone was going to be there. Ethan was there, and I just let him have it.”
Cony freshman Anderson Noyes added a 2-yard TD run in the fourth quarter as part of a six-carry, 36-yard night.
Cony has only three days to prepare for Messalonskee, which defeated the Rams 39-21 on Sept. 15 and earned a bye for Saturday’s semi. The Rams’ schedule, as was the case with many other teams in Maine, was put into flux after last Wednesday’s mass shooting in Lewiston put a pause on the high school sports season.
Before the game, a moment of silence was held to remember the victims, and Cony’s cheerleaders sported blue ribbons and pompons.
Cony likely will have only one contact practice before Saturday’s game, said Lippert, who described the last several days as “odd and disjointed.”
“We in uncharted territory now,” said Lippert. “The NFL guys can play Sunday-Thursday, so for high school kids to do that, it’s going to be a little bit of a challenge for us, but there’s extenuating circumstances statewide, so we’ve just got to play the schedule and see what we can do.”
Mt. Blue, which earned the sixth and last playoff berth after Falmouth pulled out of the payoffs upon forfeiting a game earlier this season, finished 0-9.
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