SCARBOROUGH – In its first two games of the season, Windham lived up to its nickname, soaring to dominating wins with a high-flying offense. But Friday night, the Eagles got caught up in a powerful Red Storm and couldn’t recover.

Scarborough scored on a 65-yard touchdown pass on its third play from scrimmage and never looked back, defeating Windham 27-12 in Scarborough in a matchup of two 2-0 teams. Quarterback Dillon Russo led the way for the Red Storm, completing 9 of 18 passes for two touchdowns through the air and 129 yards on nine carries on the ground, adding an interception on defense for good measure.

Russo said he and his teammates knew they were coming into the season a bit unnoticed after going 3-6 last season, but with back-to-back wins over two of the SMAA favorites in Bonny Eagle and Windham, no one will be overlooking them moving forward.

“They’re big wins for us,” he said. “We definitely believed that we were under the radar from other people’s perspective, but we just believe in ourselves.”

Russo was referring to the opening two plays of the game, when Scarborough fullback Dan LeClair was stopped cold for no gain and loud chirping could be heard from the Windham defense.

That changed on the third play, when Russo found receiver Greg Viola open behind the Windham secondary. Viola made two moves around defenders and scampered into the end zone for a 65-yard touchdown.

“That definitely got us going because we prepare so hard for these games and every week we just work hard, and they think they can talk like that and say that we can’t win this game,” Russo said. “Again we just believe in ourselves and we know we can come out here and win games.”

The Eagles drove the ball 40 yards on its first possession but were forced to punt, and Viola again burned them, this time on a spectacular leaping grab in the end zone for a 30-yard catch as Scarborough took a 15-0 lead 10 minutes in.

“I saw that he had the corner beat and I knew that if I just threw it away the corner he would go get it,” Russo said. “And he made an awesome catch in the end zone. It was spectacular.”

It might have been spectacular for Russo, but it was anything but for Eagles coach Matt Perkins.

“We had two blown coverages,” he said of the two scores. “We had them on third and long both times. Stuffing the run, stuffing the run and then we don’t do our assignment in the defensive backfield and they score 15 points.”

Things went from bad to worse for Windham when starting quarterback Damien Shepard and two-way lineman Brandon Mitchell both went down with injuries on the same play late in the second quarter. But backup QB Todd Allen came in to lead the Eagles to their first touchdown of the night with 15 seconds left in the half, capping an 83-yard drive with a 12-yard pass to Jacob Perry to make it 15-6.

Shepard would return at receiver in the second half as Allen continued to run the offense, but the explosive threat Shepard provides out of the spread attack was gone.

“We had to make some quick adjustments and get some backups in and go from there,” Perkins said. “But (Allen) came right in and did a real good job for us.”

The second half was a turnover- and penalty-filled affair as neither team scored in the third. It was Windham who would blink first in the fourth when Scarborough’s Charlie Raybine picked off Allen for his second interception of the night, returning it for 22 yards for a touchdown and a 21-6 lead.

Windham responded with a 72-yard drive that ended with an Allen 4-yard scamper to get it back to 21-12, but the Storm recovered the onside kick and scored the hammer blow just two plays later when LeClair scored on a toss play from 10 yards out to make it a 27-12 final.

While in the end it was a two-touchdown win for Scarborough, the Storm were called for 11 penalties, including one that negated a 58-yard Russo touchdown run, and turned the ball over twice in the red zone. Though happy with the way his kids overcame the adversity, coach Lance Johnson knew his squad couldn’t afford such costly mistakes in the coming weeks.

“We had way too many penalties and we turned the ball over down on the goal line and that kind of hurt us, this game could have been a little easier in the second half,” Johnson said. “One of our words of the week is resiliency and we talk about being resilient when things aren’t going well and to stay resilient and make the next play. So its something we talk about and we’ve got good smart kids and they believe in what we teach them, so they hang in there and they play tough.”

Resiliency was also a word that Perkins used after the game, as his team will have to bounce back quickly when it hosts two-time defending state champs Cheverus this Friday.

“We’ve got a bunch of resilient kids and we’ve just got to worry about ourselves,” he said. “We’ve been in this situation before and have fought back. We’ve got to fix our problems and we’ll be fine.”

Scarborough quarterback Dillon Russo rolls out looking for a target down field in the third quarter against Windham. Russo threw for two touchdowns and had an interception on defense as the Red Storm defeated the Eagles 27-12. (Staff photo by Cameron Dunbar)
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