Brewer and Skowhegan didn’t exactly put on a defensive clinic on Friday night, but the Witches’ Trey Wood was their best defense in the fourth quarter.
The bruising Brewer senior ran for 280 yards on 40 carries and four touchdowns as the Witches outlasted the Indians 54-41 in a battle of Class B North unbeatens at Doyle Field.
Brewer improves to 4-0 while Skowhegan falls to 3-1.
Trailing by 13 with just one timeout remaining and a little more than two minutes to go, Garrett McSweeney quickly got the Indians inside the Brewer 10-yard line.
After three incompleted passes, Austin Lufkin sacked McSweeney on fourth down to give the Witches the win.
Skowhegan wasted no time in getting on the board, as McSweeney lofted a 54-yard touchdown pass on the game’s first play to give the Indians an 8-0 lead.
Brewer responded with a long drive featuring a heavy dose of Trey Wood, who capped the march with a short touchdown run and a two-point conversion to tie the score.
McSweeney fired his second touchdown pass of the contest on the Indians’ next drive, this one coming from 23 yards out and his PAT kick gave Skowhegan a 15-8 lead.
Once again, Brewer would respond on its subsequent drive, with Zac Duncan scoring from 10 yards out, but the Indians stuffed Wood on a two-point conversion try.
Wood would give the Witches their first lead early in the second quarter on his second TD run of the evening, and he added his third later in the period.
A 3-yard TD pass from McSweeney got the Indians within 28-21 later in the quarter, and a short TD plunge from Coby Bailey in the final seconds of the first half sent the teams into halftime tied at 28.
The offensive fireworks continued in the second half, with Cody Wood capping off the opening drive of the half with a 30-yard bootleg on a fourth and 3 to put Brewer up 34-28.
A pair of McSweeny TD passes sandwiched around a TD run by Duncan made it 41-40 Skowhegan after three.
The Witches would take advantage of a Skowhegan roughing the punter penalty early in the fourth, with Trey Wood’s third TD of the game and Cody Wood’s 2-point conversion rush giving Brewer a 48-41 lead.
After Brewer forced a 3-and-out, the Witches steadily moved the ball downfield and milked the clock before Trey Wood scored from just inside the red zone to give Brewer its vital two-touchdown lead in the final minutes.
