WALES — Halfback Kyle Flaherty returned to the Oak Hill backfield on a full-time basis Saturday afternoon and provided a spark as the Raiders rolled to a convincing 32-2 win against Old Orchard Beach in a Campbell Conference football game.
Flaherty, a senior who had been hampered by a hamstring injury, rushed for a game-high 170 yards and scored a touchdown to help Oak Hill earn its third consecutive win.
“He brings a dimension between the tackles we don’t usually have,” Oak Hill Coach Stacen Doucette said. “He can run and read blocking. He always gains yards.”
Flaherty averaged better than 14 yards per carry to help the Raiders amass 305 yards on offense.
“From the weather reports we were getting, we felt it may be sloppy so we spent all week practicing power formations,” Doucette said. “We felt we had ironed things out and looked pretty good at times.”
Oak Hill (4-1) kept the ball on the ground.
The Raiders ran on 48 of their 50 plays out of its double-wing formation.
The Raiders scored on their first four possession to open up a 24-0 lead in the first half.
Less than two minutes into the game, quarterback Dalton Therrien scored on 13-yard run to cap a five-play, 60-yard drive that featured a 33-yard run by Flaherty.
Two minutes later, Flaherty scored on a 27-yard run three plays after defensive back Johan Martin recovered a fumble at the Old Orchard 41.
A little more than a minute into the second, Alex Mace scored on a 15-yard run to finish an eight-play, 91-yard scoring march after the Seagulls (2-2) lost the ball on downs.
With 6:40 left, Adam Merrill booted a 31-yard field goal at the end of an eight-play, 72-yard drive that featured Flaherty’s 44-yard run.
“We didn’t match their physical play in the first half,” Seagulls Coach Dean Plante said. “We made some adjustments, and the kids stopped them after that, but when you’re down 24-0 it changes your game plan.”
The Seagulls got on the scoreboard with 1:22 left in the first half when a long snap by Oak Hill sailed over the head of punter Levi Buteau and through the end zone.
The Raiders moved into a 30-2 lead 14 seconds into the second half when Therrien threw a 39-yard scoring pass to Mace on the first play after Matthew Strout recovered OOB’s fumble on the kickoff.
Oak Hill completed the scoring seven minutes into the fourth quarter when a long snap went over the OOB punter’s head and through the end zone.
“Defensively, our philosophy is to bend and don’t break, and that’s what we did today,” Doucette said.
The Seagulls had 231 yards of total offense, but they also lost three fumbles, including two inside the Oak Hill 5-yard line.
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