AUGUSTA — As they headed to the locker room at halftime of Friday night’s Pine Tree Conference Class B opener against Mt. Blue, the Cony Rams felt a hauntingly familiar sense of opportunity lost.

For the second time in as many games agains the Cougars, the Rams had squandered a three-touchdown lead. But there were two big differences. For one, the last time it happened in last year’s PTC quarterfinals — it ended their season.

Second, and most importantly, the two teams still had a half to play.

Cony dominated the second half and, behind five touchdowns by junior wide receiver Jordan Roddy, pulled off a measure of revenge with a 41-22 win at Alumni Field.

“It’s been on our mind all offseason,” said senior QB Taylor Heath, referring to the Rams’ 35-34 loss last year, a game which they led, 27-7 at halftime. “The coaches didn’t talk about it at halftime, but I’m sure it was in the back of their minds. We focused on the second half of this game.”

“We didn’t want that to happen again,” Roddy said.

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The Rams recovered after a first half that started in fine fashion with Heath and Roddy connecting on touchdowns of 26, 3 and 20 yards in the first 8:27 of the game.

“He’s our best player. We’ve got to get him the ball,” Heath said. “We get him the ball, we win games. That’s how it is.”

“We have good chemistry on our offense and Coach Lip does a good job with our offense,” Roddy said.

Mt. Blue’s defense forced two turnovers in the second quarter and the offense chipped away with a 1-yard QB sneak for a TD by Cole Dorman and a 17-yard scoring run by Makao Thompson.

The Cougars took the lead with their longest scoring drive of the night — eight-plays, 70 yards — that featured Thompson on the ground before Noah Carlton scored from 14 yards out. Carlton added the two-point conversion with 9.5 seconds left in the half to give his team the one-point lead at halftime.

Cony’s defense and special teams, led by Heath, Nate Demers, Nic Mills and Matthew Wozniak, turned the turnover tables in the second half.

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“A couple of defensive adjustments by coach (Brandon) Terrill,” Cony coach B.L. Lippert said. “We did some nice things defensively, got a big stop on the goal line and made some plays on offense.”

Wozniak recovered a bobbled punt catch at Mt. Blue’s 26 midway through the third quarter. Heath and Roddy teamed up again for a touchdown on the next play to take the lead back and keep it.

“We played well physically up front even though we’re an inexperienced line,” Mt. Blue coach Jim Aylward said. “You can’t make some of the mistakes we made and win the game. We were running out of bodies. Our center went down in the third quarter. Then the kid we put in at guard, he comes out. We were down to kids who were not varsity ready. Hats off to (Cony), they had probably the two best athletes on the field.”

Roddy battled cramps much of the second half, but after the defense pulled off a goal line stand, the Rams went to their bag of tricks to make up for it. At their own 19, Heath threw laterally to his left to Chad Bickford, who found Anthony Sousa wide open down the middle for an 81-yard double-pass touchdown and a 34-22 lead.

“The safety bit. Sousa was wide open. I just threw it to him,” Bickford said.

Roddy added a five-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter to put the game away.


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