AUBURN — It appears that even while Mother Nature can slow down the Lawrence High School football team, even she can’t stop the Bulldogs.

Lawrence was scheduled to take on Edward Little on Friday night at Walton Field, but a thunderstorm shortly before kickoff forced the delay of the game to Saturday afternoon. No matter. Led by a typically stingy defense, the Bulldogs rolled to a 39-16 victory over the Red Eddies, in the season opener for both teams.

The Bulldogs led 39-0 after three quarters, before Edward Little scored a pair of touchdowns against Lawrence’s reserves.

In the first half, Lawrence gained 171 yards while holding the Eddies to 51. Edward Little’s first four drives ended in a three and out, and the Eddies didn’t gain a first down until midway through the second quarter.

“We knew they were a pass-oriented offense. We got what we needed to do. For the most part, I felt like we did really great,” said Lawrence linebacker Josh Doolan, who returned an interception 47 yards for a touchdown in the second quarter.

Lawrence head coach John Hersom gave credit to secondary coach Josh Blaisdell, who designed the coverage the Bulldogs used to counter Edward Little’s spread attack. Lawrence held Eddies’ quarterback Sean Ford to 11 completions on 23 passes for 89 yards, 43 of those coming on one play against Lawrence junior varsity players in the fourth quarter.

“The plan was to cover them and not try to get up the field and pressure as much as maybe we would with a more elusive quarterback,” Hersom said. “We felt we could try to hone in on their routes and cover those routes and do a pretty good job that way.”

Added Edward Little coach Dave Sterling: “We played well at times, but other times we let up and gave them a good opportunity. We need to respond from that. They’re a good football team, and you can’t allow those things to happen.”

Lawrence took a 7-0 lead when Josh Doolan scored on a 9-yard run midway through the first quarter. Three minutes in to the second quarter, Doolan scored on a 7-yard run to give the Bulldogs a 14-0 lead.

Anthony Sementelli’s 30-yard touchdown run two minutes later pushed Lawrence’s lead to 20-0, and with 4:39 left in the first half, Doolan had his interception return for a score.

“We knew that they were going to run some drags in the middle. I saw (Ford) tilt his shoulder, and it led me to move over there,” said Doolan, who sat out the entire second half with mild heat exhaustion.

“I got a good grab on that ball. I knew I had time to get there, so I kind of delayed myself a little bit.”

Chad Martin drilled a 39-yard field goal on the final play of the first half to give Lawrence a 30-0 lead at the break.

On the second play of the second half, Luke Lawrence tackled Johnny Boyd in the endzone for a safety. Sementelli (12 carries for 99 yards) scored on a 12-yard run with 5:05 left in the third to push Lawrence’s lead to 39-0.

“Our offense is kind of based on rhythm and kind of getting a feel for what the defense is trying to do against us,” Hersom said. “It takes a couple series sometimes to get that down. I think once we got that down, we were pretty efficient for the rest of the first half, and a little bit into the third quarter.”

Edward Little finally got on the board with 10:03 left in the game, when Andrew St. Pierre returned a fumble 38 yards for a touchdown. With just over two minutes to play, Ford connected with Ian Mileikis on a 10-yard touchdown pass.

Travis Lazarczyk — 861-9242
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