The first two times Tre Fletcher touched the ball in each half, he scored. In between there were plenty of other highlights for third-seeded Cheverus in a 42-0 victory against sixth-ranked Lewiston in a Class B North football quarterfinal Saturday at Boulos Stadium.
Fletcher, a freshman running back, finished with three touchdowns and 188 yards rushing as Cheverus (6-3) advanced to play at second-seeded Windham (6-2) in the semifinals at 7 p.m. Friday.
Although Cheverus scored early, it didn’t get a second touchdown until the final minute of the first quarter, then scored its next two in the final 37 seconds of the half.
This could have been a 14-0 halftime score against a team the Stags beat 68-16 in the third week of the season.
“We had a little slow start,” said two-way senior lineman and co-captain Frank Curran. “It was hard not to overlook this team for Windham, but once we got our offense rolling we were fine. I thought the offensive line probably had its best game of the season.”
The Blue Devils (2-7) threatened early in the second quarter, and that was it against the aggressive and hard-hitting Cheverus defense. With the score 14-0, Lewiston faked a punt at the Cheverus 38 as Nick Harden passed to Jeremy Madore for a 19-yard gain. On fourth-and-4 from the 15, Cheverus held.
Fletcher continued his flashy running, and Justin Johnston and Rylan Benedict also gained good yardage.
“He’s a freshman,” said Coach John Wolfgram of Fletcher. “He does some good things and he’s working on improving each day in practice. I thought our backs ran very well and Isaac Dunn at quarterback made some plays.We played well on the line of scrimmage. Lewiston didn’t give us anything up front. We had to earn it.”
The Blue Devils tried to shake things up, kicking just over the front line hoping to recover the second-half kickoff, and also blitzed several times hoping to distrupt the Stags’ offense. But nothing really worked.
With 11 seconds left in the first half, Dunn returned an interception 50 yards for a score for Cheverus.
“That was the exclamation point in the first half,” said Wolfgram.
Cheverus made the 2-point conversion on a run by Fletcher to make it 29-0 at the half.
Fletcher saved his best run for last, scoring on a 58-yarder on Cheverus’ first play of the second half. He broke outside, tightroped down the sideline, then cut across the field.
On the next series, Benedict scored on a 21-yard run up the middle for the final touchdown.
Curran said his team has come a long way since a 57-0 drubbing to Thornton Academy in the second week of the season.
“That was a wake-up call. This is a whole different team,” he said. “We had a lot of young players at the start of the season who didn’t know how to play a full 48 minutes and what it takes physically to play.”
Johnston carried 10 times for 66 yards and a touchdown. Benedict had three carries for 28 yards and a touchdown. Dunn was 3 of 6 passing for 40 yards.
Bobby Slattery’s interception gave Cheverus the ball at the start of the second half. Then the Stags handed it to Fletcher on first down and he was gone.
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