The Mt. Ararat defense held Waterville to just 45 yards of total offense. Cooper Sullivan/The Times Record
TOPSHAM — The Mt. Ararat Eagles are still soaring and have hopes of going even higher after a 60-0 win over Waterville in an 8-man Large School football contest.
The 60 points scored on Friday night are the most for Mt. Ararat so far this season. It was also the team’s first shutout.
“We’ve got a couple guys that were banged up, so they weren’t playing tonight, so we had some twos that were stepping up,” Mt. Ararat head coach Frank True said. “They did a really good job for us. We got it rolling early.”
Mt. Ararat (4-0) started its opening series by trading handoffs to running backs Nick Doughty and Dash Farrell, before Farrell punched in a 6-yard touchdown for a score, his first of four in the game.
Waterville (0-4) began its first drive with junior running back Evan Delaware and sophomore quarterback Damien Prindall chipping away yards for two first downs, but the Purple Panthers’ drive was halted when Mt. Ararat’s Aidan Ramsay intercepted a deep pass and returned it to near midfield.
Waterville crossed midfield only once more, finishing the night with 45 yards of offense and two more turnovers.
Three plays after Ramsay’s interception, Farrell ran in another 6-yard touchdown. The senior running back scored his third right after Mt. Ararat recovered a bad snap on a Waterville punt on the first play of the second quarter. Farrell’s fourth touchdown was an 81-yard breakaway on the first play of the Eagles’ next drive.
He finished the night with eight carries, 141 yards rushing and Mt. Ararat’s only catch, for a 28-yard gain.
The Purple Panthers were plagued by injuries, losing junior utility man Jaiyden Veysey to an upper body injury after colliding with an Eagles defender while reaching for the fumbled punt snap. Delaware, Waterville’s leading rusher, also left before halftime with a right leg injury.
Besides his interception, Ramsay tacked on a rushing touchdown to put the home team up by 40 at halftime, and he added another to make the lad 46-0 within the first two minutes of the second half.
Sophomore D’Angelo Pearson scored on a 14-yard run with five minutes left in the third quarter and sophomore Dominic Forgrave capped the scoring with a 5-yard TD run to give the Eagles 60 points halfway through the fourth quarter.