AUBURN — Senior quarterback TJ Kramarz led Edward Little to a 36-34 football win over Messalonskee on Friday.

Kramarz scored the go-ahead touchdown in the final minute, his third TD of the game, and finished with 145 yards rushing.

“The win felt amazing. It’s the first one on the varsity field,” Kramarz said. “This is my first time playing football ever in my life, so it’s great. It’s great for the community, too. We needed it.”

The game was close throughout, but the Red Eddies didn’t trail until the Eagles took a 34-28 lead with about three minutes remaining.

Edward Little, as it had all game, answered one more time, with Kramarz scoring on a 2-yard run and then running in the two-point conversion with 41 seconds left in the game to put the Red Eddies up 36-34.

“We had to drive the field,” Kramarz said. “It was excellent. We got the ball to (Quan Bullock) a few times. We moved the ball with a pass (to Haydon Emery) and it just came down in our favor.”

Bullock, a junior, finished with 93 yards rushing and two touchdowns.

“This was my first varsity touchdown,” Bullock said. “I feel like I gained a lot of yards, and TJ, he made something out of nothing with a couple plays. With a couple plays, they (Messalonskee) were lagging, and he (Kramarz) made it.”

Bullock credited his yardage Friday to Kramarz blocking for him on the side, as well blocks by Evan Madigan and Aiden Ducette.

Along with it being their first win on the school’s new field, which they began playing on last season, Friday’s victory is the Red Eddies’ first since they beat Brewer on Sept. 16, 2022.

Edward Little coach Rick Kramer said the win was “long time coming.”

“I think that one of the things that was the best was to see them be resilient,” Kramer said. “They lacked confidence all year, and to have this happen, it was an incredible day for us. I’m just really blessed to have great coaches with me. I got incredible, incredible people I know in the community that are guys I fellowship with that are just amazing people.”

SCORE AND RESPONSE

The Red Eddies (1-2) scored first when Bullock scored his first varsity touchdown on the 23-yard run.

“We’ve had slow starts to all three of our games,” Messalonskee coach Blair Doucette said. “We want to come out a lot faster than we have, we’re trying to work on that at practice. But, I think, pretty much the key thing is the boys have fought through it all year so far, in that we also have nine guys going both ways. We have a bunch of iron men that hold on, they work real hard.”

The Eagles (1-2) tied the game at 6-6 in the second quarter when Drake Brunelle returned a punt 95 yards for a touchdown.

That began a pattern of Edward Little scoring and Messalonskee answering.

Bullock scored on a 1-yard run for the Eddies later in the second quarter, then Messalonskee quarterback Tatum Doucette scored the first of his three TDs, and the game went into halftime tied 12-12.

“Tatum works hard, he’s a heck of an athlete, and him being able to run like that is also a result of our running back Landon Rancourt really doing a great job tonight,” Blair Doucette said.

Tatum Doucette finished with 101 yards rushing. Rancourt added 94 yards on the ground and one TD.

Kramer said that several Red Eddies were playing defense for the first time Friday night, due to a mixture of new players and injuries.

“Every season I’ve been here, we’ve had the same situation,” Kramer said. “You’ve just got to give kids an opportunity, and when you have a great relationship with them, they never want to let you down.”

Neither quarterback had a lot of passing yards — Kramarz finished with 23 and Doucette had 12 — but both continually made good things happen with their feet.

Kramarz put Edward Little back on top with a 1-yard run, but Tatum Doucette answered with a 1-yard TD run for the Eagles to tie the game for the third and final time at 20-20 with 1:06 left in the third quarter.

Kramarz scored on a 38-yard run on the final play of the third quarter, then added the two-point conversion to send Edward Little into the fourth period with a 28-20 lead.

Messalonskee quickly cut its deficit to two points, 28-26, on Rancourt’s 14-yard touchdown run with 10:50 left in the game.

A costly unsportsmanlike conduct call on Edward Little later in the fourth helped Messalonskee score its next touchdown, a 1-yard run by Tatum Doucette with 3:10 remaining, and for the first time the Eagles had the lead, 34-28.

“My blood was boiling, literally; our first win on this field, and we were this close to losing it,” Bullock said. “I feel like we pulled it in nicely.”

Kramarz credited the Edward Little coaching staff for cooling down the team, and reminding the players that there were still three minutes on the clock.

Kramarz, who last fall was on the Red Eddies golf team, led the offense down the field for the go-ahead score to give Edward Little a victory that not many predicted.

“Obviously, we’re underdogs, not many people expect us to win, but when we go out here and play with this much heart, it came in our favor,” Kramarz said.

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