AUGUSTA — First, Falmouth wouldn’t go away. Then, the Yachtsmen couldn’t be stopped.
Falmouth High bounced back after Cony’s hot start to take an eight-point lead into halftime, then built on the advantage with an unrelenting ground game on the way to a 41-19 win in a football opener at Alumni Field on Friday night.
Quarterback Jack Bryant ran for three touchdowns for the Yachtsmen, and carried 24 times for 123 yards. He was backed by Riley Reed (nine carries, 107 yards) and Garrett Aube (nine carries, 39 yards).
The Rams, relying almost exclusively on screens and rollout passes from Anthony Sousa (19 of 43, 225 yards), took a pair of first-half leads and got excellent efforts from Elijah Dutil (six catches, 101 yards, two touchdowns) and Jordan Roddy (seven catches, 91 yards, one touchdown).
But Falmouth went into the break with a 21-13 lead, and Cony couldn’t halt the Yachtsmen in the second half.
Bryant wove through for a 7-yard score on the first possession, putting Falmouth ahead 28-13, and Falmouth’s next drive resulted in a 5-yard score by Bryant and a 34-13 lead with 58 seconds left in the third quarter.
Roddy’s twisting, acrobatic catch on an 18-yard reception with 6:46 remaining made it 34-19 and kept Cony’s hopes alive, but Reed ran 8 yards for a score with 1:52 left to round out the scoring.
The Rams took command early, but couldn’t come up with stops to capitalize on their momentum. After Falmouth turned the ball over on downs in Cony territory on its first possession, the Rams marched back the other way, going 71 yards in 12 plays and taking a 7-0 lead when Anthony Sousa lofted a pass toward the left corner of the end zone to Dutil, who beat his coverage and hauled in the score with 4:16 left in the first quarter.
The lead was gone in minutes. Three running plays brought the Yachtsmen from their own 18 to the Cony 38, and Reed – who sparked the drive with a 22-yard run – ripped off another through the Rams defense for a touchdown, making it 7-7 with 2:44 left.
The Rams countered with a dose of trickery.
After recovering a punt that glanced off of a Falmouth player, Cony ignited the crowd when, on 3rd-and-4 from his own 49, Sousa tossed the ball back left to Reed Hopkins for what seemed to be a bubble screen. Hopkins instead fired the ball down the sideline to a wide-open Dutil, who hauled in the pass and went in for the score and a 13-7 lead with 10:38 left in the second quarter.
Again, the Yachtsmen recovered. Falmouth went from its own 43 to the Cony 36 in four plays, before Bryant hit Reed over the middle for a touchdown and the Yachtsmen’s first lead at 14-13 with 8:14 to go in the half. Cony turned the ball over on downs on its next series and Falmouth struck again, gouging the Rams on the ground before Bryant scored on a keeper from 17 yards out with 2:20 remainng.
Cony was poised to go into the locker room with a share of the lead when Roddy returned the kickoff 33 yards to the Cony 49 and the Rams brought the ball down to the Falmouth 1, but the drive ended as a missed opportunity for Cony.
Roddy was stuffed on a sweep and a Sousa pass fell incomplete, prompting a pass interference call but leaving only 0.4 seconds on the clock. Roddy was stopped again on a try up the middle, leaving Cony down by eight.
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