OAKLAND — Nothing came easy on the ground for the Windham football team Saturday afternoon.
No matter. Will Ledbetter and the Eagles’ passing game were more than able to pick up the slack.
Ledbetter threw for 360 yards and two touchdowns while hitting targets Max Arbour and Nick Garrison early and often, leading the Eagles to a 36-7 victory over Cony at Messalonskee’s Veterans Field.
Windham (5-0) coach Matt Perkins said during the week that the Rams (3-2) were going to be the Eagles’ biggest test yet. On Saturday, they aced it, and strengthened the case even further that they are the team to beat in Class B North.
“We did pretty well,” Perkins said. “They gave us all kinds of things that cause us fits up front, but guys really adjusted. I was proud of the way they adjusted.”
Ledbetter completed 21 of 29 passes for Windham, doing equal damage in the pocket and on the move. His team needed it, with Cony holding the Eagles’ top two backs, Haddon Boyle and Tate Chork, to 38 yards on 22 carries.
“Will, he’s special,” Perkins said. “He stood tall in the pocket. Sometimes we didn’t protect him well, he stood there and delivered the ball and took hits. He was great.”
“They’re a well-coached team, so we knew they were going to stack the box,” Ledbetter said. “They have to do something to make us do something else. … We just knew we could rely on the guys on the outside, our tight ends and our receivers, to make sure we could get the job done.”
Those targets came up big. Garrison and Arbour had 174 receiving yards and a touchdown apiece — Garrison caught 10 passes, Arbour snagged nine.
Cony receiver Sam Flannery (11) can’t run down the ball as he is defended by Windham’s Tayshawn Lindsay (13) in Oakland on Saturday. Michael G. Seamans
“Will throwing the ball to us, I couldn’t ask for a better quarterback. He’s throwing it right where we need it,” Garrison said. “And coach was calling the right plays, we were just driving together as a team. The offensive line is really working, giving Will time to get us open.”
Cony coach B.L. Lippert said the gameplan was to take Windham’s running game away, but that the Eagles still presented too much to stop through the air.
“We had no answer for No. 9 and No. 12 on the outside,” he said. “We expected them to be really big and physical and to try to run it down our throat, and they tried to at times, and we held up pretty firm against that. We just got exposed on the outside, playing some man-to-man, and we just couldn’t really stick with those guys.”
The tone was set on the first drive, when Ledbetter hit Arbour for 35 yards to the Cony 3-yard line, setting up Chork’s 2-yard run for a 7-0 lead. It was hammered home on the second, with Windham picking up a third-and-18 from the Cony 49 when Arbour came down with a Ledbetter jump ball for 42 yards. Penalties quickly presented the Eagles with first-and-goal from the 28, but Ledbetter found Garrison for nine yards and Arbour for 19 and a touchdown, making it 14-0 with 1:50 left in the quarter.
“Our running game wasn’t really working today, but we had to find a way,” Arbour said. “The passing game was that way.”
A 20-yard interception return for a touchdown by Jason Scott made the score 22-0, where it stood into the second half. Cony found a rhythm on its second possession of the third quarter, going 83 yards and finishing the march with Davyn Flynn’s 2-yard run, but Windham quickly put the game out of reach. Ledbetter’s 10-yard pass to Garrison capped another 83-yard drive with 10:16 to play, and Chork’s second touchdown run from a yard out wrapped up a 56-yard scoring drive with 5:18 remaining.
Cony’s Rocco Napolyano (19) breaks up a pass intended for Windham’s Max Arbour (12) in Oakland on Saturday. Michael G. Seamans/Morning Sentinel
Windham’s defense was as impressive as its offense. The Eagles held Flynn to 3-of-21 passing, and a front of Scott, Dylan Mathieson, Bryce Duarte and Colby Mizner prevented the Rams from getting going on the ground. Elijah Klaiber led Cony with 14 carries for 83 yards, 41 of which came on the scoring drive.
“They’re really good up front,” Lippert said. “After the first couple of series, we really had nothing going at all. We ran it a little bit better later on.”
Lippert also said the Eagles provided a challenge for his sophomore quarterback.
“It’s a growing experience,” he said. “He had never played quarterback until four weeks ago. You play a team of this caliber … that’s a tough game for a sophomore to play, but he’s going to have some more defenses that are tough to face moving forward.”
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