Maranacook’s Isaiah Churchill, left, breaks up a pass intended for Sacopee Valley receiver Dylan Capano during an eight-man quarterfinal game last Friday in Readfield. Joe Phelan/Kennebec Journal
READFIELD — There’s a sense of familiarity between central Maine’s two remaining eight-man football teams and their regional semifinal opponents.
Friday’s Large School North semifinal between Waterville and Morse will mark the fourth time the Purple Panthers and Shipbuilders have played one another over the two seasons. The same can be said for a Small School matchup between Maranacook and Dirigo, which will also meet again after two regular season matchups and a playoff battle a year ago.
“It’s just one of things where we’ve played each other a lot, and both teams know what each other likes to do and what they do well,” said Waterville head coach Isaac LeBlanc. “You have to play clean, otherwise, it’s hard to beat a team that’s good at what they do and is familiar with you.”
Regional title game berths will be on the line for the Purple Panthers and Black Bears, both of whom beat their Week 9 opponents earlier in the regular season. Yet things have changed in the eight-man landscape in the weeks since those matchups, and both coaches know they will have tougher challenges on their hands as win-or-go-home season arrives.
In its first game of the season, Maranacook claimed a 34-28 victory over Dirigo in a rematch of a Small School South semifinal game a year ago. The Black Bears trailed that back-and-forth contest by two late in the game before a touchdown with 17 seconds left saw the team snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
The two teams have been on slightly different trajectories since that Week 1 battle. Whereas the No. 2 Black Bears (6-2) have suffered a 36-0 loss to Mountain Valley and a 38-20 loss to Old Orchard Beach, No. 3 Dirigo (6-2) has beaten OOB and given the Falcons their toughest battle of the year in a 32-24 loss.
“If you look at what Dirigo has done since then, they’re really playing great football,” Maranacook coach Jordan DeMillo said. “They played a great game against a great team in Mountain Valley, and then they played Boothbay and blew Boothbay out. That’s a totally different football team than the one we played at the beginning of the season.”
If Maranacook is to beat Dirigo again Friday night, DeMillo said, it’s going to come down to stopping the Cougars’ dual-threat quarterback, Charlie Houghton. The senior from Dixfield has thrown for 13 touchdowns and more than 1,000 yards while running for 15 touchdowns and more than 700 yards as the backbone of the Dirigo offense.
Waterville’s Ben Foster (28) loses the ball as he is tackled by Morse defender Calin Gould during an Oct. 8 game in Waterville. Michael G. Seamans/Morning Sentinel
“We’ve got to find a way to slow Charlie down,” DeMillo said. “You look at their film from that first game and their past three or four games, and he really impresses you. They’re a total team with playmakers all over the field, but they also have a QB who can put the team on his back if he needs to and make it happen.”
Elsewhere, Waterville played a sound game defensively in its 26-8 victory over Morse in Week 6. It was a game, LeBlanc said, in which the Purple Panthers were particularly aggressive and disciplined in their assignments against a Shipbuilders team they had previously beaten in last year’s Large-School North title game.
Since then, though, Waterville (4-3) has fallen from the No. 1 spot to No. 3 after losses to Mt. Ararat and Camden Hills. Morse (5-3), on the other hand, has beaten Camden and Greely to jump to No. 2 and earn a home playoff game against a Purple Panthers team looking to stop a slide that’s come at the wrong time.
“I think we’ve just got to reset,” LeBlanc said. “We’ve made some uncharacteristic mistakes, and it’s hurt us against some good teams. We just have to play clean football and refocus. You have to do that because it’s playoff time, and if you don’t, you’re probably going home.”
In the 11-man ranks, there will be a few unexpected matchups in the Class B North quarterfinals after some unexpected results last week shook up the standings. After Skowhegan topped the Pine Tree Conference all season long, the No. 1 seed instead went to Cony (6-2), which will face eighth-ranked Mt. Blue (3-5) at Fuller Field.
Second-ranked Skowhegan (6-2) will face seventh-ranked Brewer (3-5) as it looks to bounce back from consecutive defeats. Fifth-ranked Gardiner (4-4) will play at No. 4 Falmouth (5-3), which nearly knocked off Cony in the regular season finale.
Waterville’s Dawson Harrison (22) rushes against Morse during an Oct. 8 game in Waterville. Michael G. Seamans/Morning Sentinel
In the remaining Class B North showdown, No. 6 Lawrence will travel to face No. 3 Windham (5-3) in a rematch of a Week 2 game, which the Eagles won, 23-8. The Bulldogs have battled injuries down the stretch but should have a number of players back Friday as they look to wash out the bitter taste of an overtime loss to Messalonskee last week
“When we came in Saturday morning (after the Messalonskee game), it was painful, but we were able to move forward and get ready for Windham,” Lawrence head coach John Hersom said. “We don’t want a loss last week or a loss to them earlier in the season to be an obstacle we can’t overcome.”
In Class C North, No. 4 Nokomis (5-3) hosts fifth-ranked Winslow (3-5) on Saturday at 1 p.m.. The matchup is one of two teams with reversed fortunes from last year, with the Warriors having jumped from one win to five and the Black Raiders posting a losing record after last year’s regional championship.
Nokomis head coach Jake Rogers knows that a Winslow team that prides itself on toughness will bring something more to the table with its back against the wall. After going up against current Black Raiders head coach Wes Littlefield at a prior gig, Rogers knows the type of physically his Warriors will be up against in the regional quarterfinals.
“Going back to all the years I coached against Wes when he was at Messalonskee and I was at Lawrence, you know his kids are tough,” Rogers said. “If we make mistakes they’re going to take advantage of them. Every game we’ve lost, we can look back and see that we’ve made too many mistakes. We can’t do that this weekend.”
In the other local Class C North matchup, No. 6 Maine Central Institute (3-5) will look for its fourth win in five games when it takes on third-ranked Oceanside (5-3) on Friday night in Rockland. The Mariners defeated the Huskies 54-14 in Week 2.
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