FAIRFIELD — When his team held a 28-point lead early in the second quarter, Brunswick High School football coach Dan Cooper thought back to Week 2 of the season, and knew this wasn’t going to be easy.
It didn’t. Lawrence rallied to cut the Dragons lead to a touchdown, but Brunswick scored the final 20 points of the game to take a 55-28 Pine Tree Conference Class B win at Keyes Field.
Brunswick improved to 4-2, while Lawrence is 2-4.
“We had almost the identical lead against Skowhegan (20-0) and lost, so I was still uneasy,” Cooper said. “I knew they were capable. Once they got going, they’d be tough to stop. Thankfully tonight we were able to regain some momentum.”
Lawrence’s Isaiah Schooler scored on a 3-yard run with 2:08 left in the third quarter to cut Brunswick’s lead to 35-28, and it appeared Lawrence still had momentum when it stopped the Dragons on fourth and goal from the 1 with 10:58 left in the game. But on third down and 7 from its own 4, Lawrence fumbled. Brunswick’s Trey Curtis recovered the ball in the end zone, and the Dragon lead was 42-28.
After stopping the Bulldogs on downs at the Brunswick 24, Cam Hathaway ran 48 yards on the first play of the drive to set the Dragons up deep in Lawrence territory. Three plays later, Donald Bromiley ran in from 9-yards out and Brunswick’s lead was 48-28.
Bromiley added another touchdown, his fourth of the game, on a 30-yard run with 38 seconds left to cap the scoring.
“We didn’t make any critical mistakes, and they did. That was the difference,” Cooper said.
Early, it looked as if the Dragons were on their way to sending this game to running time. On Brunswick’s second play from scrimmage, quarterback Nate Girardin ran 45 yards for a touchdown, staking Brunswick to a 7-0 lead.
Bromiley scored on a 35-yard pass from Girardin with 6:14 left in the first quarter to give the Dragons a 14-0 lead. After Jeremiah McNeill recovered a Lawrence fumble on the Bulldogs 25, Mitch Lienert’s 6-yard run pushed Brunswick’s lead to 20-0.
Girardin’s 27-yard touchdown run with 10:41 left in the second quarter made it 28-0, and had Cooper thinking of that game that slipped away at Skowhegan in Week 2.
Lawrence stopped the Brunswick onslaught with Alex Higgins’ 2-yard touchdown run with 6:23 left in the second. After a Brunswick turnover, Zach Nickerson caught a 6-yard pass from Dylan Coombs to cut Brunswick’s lead in half, 28-14, with 2:48 left in the first half.
The teams traded touchdowns in the final minute of the second quarter. Bromiley scored on a 41-yard run for the Dragons with 57 seconds left, and Lawrence answered with a 5-yard touchdown run by Schooler 21 seconds later, making the Dragons lead 35-21 at the break.
“We’re proud of the kids for staying together and dealing with a big hole, but we can’t get off to a start like that,” Lawrence coach John Hersom said. “That was a lot of our focus this week, to try and avoid getting behind. We’ve been playing from behind quite a bit this season.”
A trio of Brunswick runners went over 100 yards — Cam Hathaway (153 yards), Bromiley (152) and Girardin (109). Higgins had 66 yards rushing and 42 yards receiving for Lawrence.
Brunswick returns to action at Brewer this upcoming Friday at 7 p.m.
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