OAKLAND — The home team brought a game plan that seemed to work. The visitors, though, delivered just enough momentum-shifters.

A strip and fumble just as Messalonskee was starting to heat up; an interception taken for a score; a kick return that led to a short field after an Eagles touchdown.

Then, after the home team turned a lopsided affair into a nail-biter, some clutch runs to seal the win.

The execution wasn’t perfect for the Cony football team in the first game of the season, but the big plays made up for it. After establishing a 27-point lead early in the second half, the Rams held off a furious charge and beat Messalonskee 33-27 on Friday in a rematch of last year’s Class B North semifinal.

“It felt a little bit like last year in the playoffs, where they rallied back to tie it after we got ahead early,” said Cony head coach B.L. Lippert, referring to the Rams’ 28-14 win last November. “I had some eerie feelings there, but at the end of the game, when we needed it most, we snapped the ball to 21 (Anderson Noyes), and he ran downhill and iced the game.”

Noyes ran for 127 yards and two touchdowns for Cony, and Parker Morin completed 8 of 15 passes for 144 yards, a score and an interception.

Tatum Doucette (170 yards, two touchdowns) and Landon Rancourt (130 yards, touchdown) had big games on the ground for Messalonskee, which outgained the Rams 370-289 in total yards.

Cony (1-0) got off to a fast start, forcing a three-and-out before mounting a 14-play, 74-yard drive that culminated in a 14-yard touchdown pass from Morin to Lance Theriault. Then, with Messalonskee driving, Da’Marion Raymond stripped the ball away from Doucette, and Ethan Demmons recovered the fumble to give Cony the ball on its own 36.

That set up Demmons touchdown run on a reverse on the second play of the second quarter to make it 14-0.

On Messalonskee’s next drive, Landen Perry took over for the Rams defense. The sophomore first sacked Doucette for a 10-yard loss, and two plays later, he made a perfect read, intercepted the ball and returned it 30 yards for a score.

“He blitzed off the edge — I think that was maybe the one time we sacked Tatum — and then, he was covering someone man-to-man in the flat, we got a little pressure, and he threw us one,” Lippert said. “He just read it and took it all the way. That was a really big play by a kid we’re going to count on a lot.”

Messalonskee (0-1) got on the scoreboard two possessions later when Doucette scored from 15 yards out, but a long kickoff return by Demmons set up a 7-yard run by Noyes to make it 27-6 with 2:12 left in the half. Noyes scored again on Cony’s first drive of the second half to make it a 33-6 game.

“They obviously got a lot of momentum in the second half,” said Noyes, who ran for 107 yards on 21 carries after halftime after gaining only 20 yards on nine carries before the break. “It was hard to kill that, so it was very important that we came out to a 27-6 lead at half.”

Instead of wilting, Messalonskee was determined to make the Rams sweat — and what the Eagles did next certainly changed the mood at Veterans Field.

A 26-yard scamper by Rancourt with 3:50 left in the third quarter followed by a 3-yard run by Doucette two minutes later made it 33-20. Then, after Drake Brunelle intercepted Morin in the end zone, Messalonskee capped an 80-yard drive with a 16-yard pass from Doucette to Malachi Cusano with 5:15 left to play to get the Eagles within a score, 33-27.

“To be honest with you, teams before this one might have folded in the situation they were in,” said Messalonskee head coach Blair Doucette. “Having games where we keep fighting, it just shows you that we’re building something. We challenged them to stay in the game and make something happen, and they did.”

Unfortunately for Messalonskee, it didn’t get another chance.

Cony started its final drive on its own 39, and Noyes ran for three first downs as the Eagles exhausted their timeouts. That capped off a big second half for Noyes, who had only one rush in the first two quarters that went for longer than 2 yards until his TD right before halftime.

“It was very nerve-wracking at the start, being a sophomore, going out on varsity for the first time, but as I got further into the game, I settled in,” Noyes said. “I found some confidence, and I was able to run the ball pretty well. … (That last drive) was just grit at the end.”