STANDISH — Losing streaks are rare for the Bonny Eagle High football team. Starting the season 0-2 is even rarer for the Scots, traditionally one of the powers of Class A football.

Bonny Eagle avoided both calamities Friday night, rebounding from a season-opening loss by defeating another recent Class A powerhouse, Oxford Hills.

“Last week we really weren’t happy with the way we played in the second half (against Lewiston). We let a game get away from us we shouldn’t have let get away. Give credit to Lewiston, but we didn’t really give our best effort,” Bonny Eagle Coach Kevin Cooper said. “Our guys care. They worked hard this week to rebound. We knew Oxford Hills was in the same kind of situation. They’ve been so good the last few years, we knew they were going to come out and give us a great game.”

The Scots (1-1) took an early lead, then made a pair of big defensive plays in the fourth quarter to secure a 27-10 win.

Ahead 20-10 early in the fourth, the Scots swiftly squashed any hopes Oxford Hills (0-2) had of a comeback when two Vikings drives ended in first-play turnovers. Emmett St. Pierre made an interception near midfield and Colby McCormack recovered a fumble on the Oxford Hills 29.

A personal foul penalty after the second turnover led to Connor Johnson’s 14-yard touchdown run – his second touchdown of the game. Johnson finished with 90 yards on 14 carries.

“Our biggest worry was going 0-2. We really had to work hard this week in practice,” said Bonny Eagle senior co-captain CJ Cooper.

Stopping Oxford Hills’ strong passing game was a point of emphasis all week, CJ Cooper said. While Brayden Murch had six catches for 62 yards and Brady Delameter had six catches for 64 yards, the Scots did a nice job limiting big plays.

“Guys like Brayden Murch, he’s a great player. I’m really proud of our defense with what we did tonight,” said CJ Cooper.

Bonny Eagle’s biggest play may have been a fake punt from its own 3 that was executed perfectly on its first drive of the second half. Davonte Ephron took the snap, rolled to his right, then sprinted down the right sideline. While a holding penalty erased 10 yards from Ephron’s run and the Scots ended up punting for real four plays later, the play was a confidence spark, Coach Cooper said.

“That’s part of our scheme. We think that with a lot of defenses we see with our punt, we can get fakes. We practice it all the time. Davonte knows if he doesn’t have it, he has to get the ball kicked. We just ran our scheme, it just happened to be in a dangerous territory, and it worked out for us,” he said.

Bonny Eagle took a 7-0 lead with 6:24 left in the first quarter on Johnson’s first touchdown, a 7-yard run. McCormack’s 27-yard run early in the second quarter pushed the lead to 13-0, and CJ Cooper’s 42-yard touchdown run on a reverse made it 20-0 with 7:48 left in the first half.

The Vikings got on the board with 1:04 remaining in the first half when Murch caught a fade in the left corner of the end zone for a 10-yard pass from Carter Wyman (172 yards passing) to cut the deficit to 20-7. Delameter’s 27-yard field goal with 2:02 left in the third cut Bonny Eagle’s lead to 20-10.