PARIS – Football (and homecoming) wins have been few and cherished at Oxford Hills in the past decade. Even more frustrating for the Vikings: The inability to beat Edward Little, a rival with whom they’ve felt evenly matched.

The jinx is over.

Matt Smith and Davis Turner each scored a touchdown, and the Oxford Hills defense delivered three first-half interceptions and a third-quarter safety to lay the foundation for a 14-7 victory on a scorching Saturday afternoon at Gouin Athletic Complex.

A standing-room-only home crowd saw Oxford Hills even its record at 2-2 — the latest in a season that the Vikings have been .500 since the current players were in the early years of elementary school. It is the first time Oxford Hills has beaten Edward Little (0-4) in coach Mark Soehren’s four-year tenure.

“We’ve been driving and driving to beat them, and the seniors knew,” said Turner, who had a hand in a dozen tackles. “They had the belief to do it. It means so much. It means everything.”

Jacob Spinhirn, Caleb Jewell and Brady LaFrance picked off passes for the Vikings. Jewell won a jump ball in the end zone to deny an EL touchdown. The other two takeaways were deep in Oxford Hills territory.

Making only his third start since taking over from LaFrance at quarterback, Smith led the Vikings to the end zone on their opening drive after the Spinhirn interception.

Turner, Malik Geiger and Kyle Dexter set up Smith’s 24-yard scamper with consecutive runs up the middle. Smith stepped up to the line on third-and-3 and shook off another dive to call his own shot.

“It’s a read. Ninety percent of the time we get that up the middle,” Smith said. “I saw that the end crashed down, and it was one of the rare times I actually pulled the ball out. It just worked out. As soon as I pulled it and got past the end, all I saw was open field.”

EL fought back to take the lead on the shoulders and quick feet of Hunter Martin, who had 22 carries for 122 yards and amassed more than 200 all-purpose yards on the afternoon.

Freshman quarterback Grant Hartley connected with Tyler Blanchard to move into Oxford Hills real estate. Faced with fourth-and-5 from the Vikings 41, Martin veered left out of a rugby punt formation and wasn’t shoved out of bounds until he reached the 22.

“He’s got to be the fastest kid in the league. It’s tough to contain him,” Soehren said. “When he gets through that first level, he’s tough to stop. He certainly got to us in the first half on that one drive, but otherwise we did a pretty good job with it.”

Three plays later, Martin took a moment to get his mitts around a last-second option toss from Hartley, then made a Viking miss at the point of attack before cutting left for a 16-yard score. Charles Cedre’s extra point put the Eddies up 7-6 with 3:36 remaining in the half.

“You look across the board and we don’t match up with anybody, but we’re working hard enough that we are staying in games,” Edward Little coach Dave Sterling said. “We’re playing a MASH unit, almost, at times.”

Hartley later left the game after a shot to the chest as he released an incomplete pass in the third quarter. He was down five minutes before walking off the field under his own power. With starter Matt Verrill already in street clothes due to the lingering effects of a concussion, third-string sophomore Noah Yarnevich finished the game.

By then, the Eddies were in catch-up mode thanks to another heady play by Smith.

Turner’s 20-yard run and a 15-yard facemask penalty against EL ignited Oxford Hills’ final series of the first half. It appeared to stall after a pair of stops by Jacob Vallee set up fourth-and-9 at the 21, but Smith lofted a pass to the right front pylon that found the fingertips of an escalating Patrick Macro.

After a false start penalty pushed the Vikings back to the 6, Turner slashed through the middle for the go-ahead score.

“I looked over before the snap to see where my receiver was, and it was Pat, and I knew,” Smith said. “We practice that all the time. I knew Pat would go up and get that. He’s our jump ball guy. You throw it up to him, and he goes up and gets it. He does a great job at it.”

Oxford Hills had a chance to put it away in the third quarter. Runs of 41 and 10 yards by Jack Littlefield on identical counter plays led the Vikings inside the 10.

The Vikings went with Geiger (15 carries for a team-high 82 yards) on both third down from the 2 and fourth down from the 1. Vallee pulled him to the ground on the latter carry.

EL couldn’t escape the hole, however, with 320-pound senior Kyle Rogers smothering Martin for two points on the next play.

“It was certainly a momentum shift,” Soehren said. “It would have been nice if we had gotten in the end zone. Good teams do that. We’re on the verge of doing that. It’s tough to win a game with 14 points on offense. We have to figure that part out.”

The Eddies reached the Oxford Hills 29 early in the fourth before Turner made back-to-back stops of Yarnevich to end the threat.

EL then denied Oxford Hills on downs at the Eddies’ 30 with 2:27 to go, and a Yarnevich completion to Blanchard had the visitors at midfield.

But Spinhirn broke up two passes, Turner tackled Martin for a loss, and a fourth-down heave sailed incomplete to seal it.

“You get chances in a game and you can’t pass them up. It’s just like turnovers,” Sterling said. “We made a great stand down there to keep us in the game and made another stand to get the ball back at the end. You’ve got to give them credit. They got the scores that they needed to.”

In addition to the goal-line stand, Michael Williams had a sack and Shammond Thomas smothered Turner on a two-point conversion attempt to headline the EL defense.

Turner carried 14 times for 79 yards for Oxford Hills, which rolled up 238 yards on the ground.

“We had a plan, and we stuck to it,” Turner said.

And ended the drought. Finally.

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