SCARBOROUGH — Scarborough High dominated from the opening series and cruised in cold conditions to its first Class A South football championship, beating Thornton Academy 49-7 on Friday night.
“It feels amazing. We’ve never been to a Class A (state) final and that was the goal this season,” said senior tackle Anthony Griffin.
Scarborough (9-1) will play North champion Windham (7-4) next Saturday at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland. The game time will be announced early next week.
Scarborough beat Windham 66-7 in the regular season, but Owen Garrard said there will be no problem getting motivated and focused.
“Last year, we got stopped in (the regional final), and we’re just so thankful to have another week of practice with all these guys,” Garrard said. “We just really love each other.”
Jarett Flaker jetted to a 73-yard touchdown on Scarborough’s third play, cutting inside a kick-out block by Garrard, and the tone was set.
Top-seeded Scarborough piled up 260 rushing yards in the first half while building a 28-0 lead, and then the defense set up two one-play scoring drives in the third quarter.
Thornton (8-2), the No. 2 seed, beat Scarborough 32-28 in the regular season in come-from-behind fashion.
“Last time we played them, we had three turnovers and over 100 yards of penalties, and we really just wanted to come out and clean that up, and we did that,” said Garrard, who rushed for 160 yards and a touchdown.
Flaker finished with 100 yards and two scores. Cody Dudley had two rushing touchdowns. Quarterback Zoltan Panyi gained 69 yards, including a 24-yard scoring burst in the third quarter. Jeremy Sendrowski added a 1-yard scoring run to push the lead to 49-0.
“You’ve got to defend the whole field against them,” said Thornton Coach Kevin Kezal. “They’ve got athletes at every position. They’re physical up front and they’ve got the big fullback (in Garrard), and tonight’s a great night to get him the football.”
The temperature hovered in the low 20s, and gusty winds made it feel much colder.
Thornton could never get its offense warmed up. Kobe Gaudette, a sophomore who played for the junior varsity team during the regular season, made his second straight playoff start at quarterback.
Will Mitchell, who started all the regular-season games, was again not in uniform for undisclosed reasons.
Efficient and effective in the win against Bonny Eagle, Gaudette completed only one pass against Scarborough and lost two fumbles. His primary weapons, Anthony Bracamonte and CJ LaBreck, found little running room against an aggressive defense that helped seal the win in the third quarter.
Jaquan Seme intercepted a pass and returned it 42 yards to the 4. Dudley swept in on the next play to put running time into effect.
On Thornton’s next possession, Griffin, a defensive end, made three straight tackles for loss (Alex Bryer helped on the third) and then blocked the punt.
“My coach took me aside and said we have to have somebody take control and actually just end this game,” Griffin said. “So I was like, I’ll take on that role and do the best that I can.”
Panyi scored on the next play, and the sixth of Liam McDonnell’s seven PATs made the score 42-0.
After Sendrowski’s TD, Thornton got on the board with 1:28 to play on a Grant Dow 5-yard run.
Steve Craig can be reached at 791-6413 or:
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