WESTBROOK – What a difference a week can make.

Eight days after falling 33-12 at Greely in a game in which almost nothing went right, Westbrook rolled up 489 yards on offense and had seven different players score touchdowns as the Blue Blazes romped to a 58-28 victory over visiting Fryeburg Academy Saturday to move to 3-1 on the season.

The quarterback who made it all go Saturday said the difference between the two games all came down to one simple thing.

“We basically just executed,” Kyle Heath said. “Greely, we failed to execute with what we wanted to do and that caused some problems for us, and this week we just got it done the way we wanted to do it.”

Fullback Cale Bollig led the assault with 127 yards and a score on 17 carries, while Collin Joyce added 99 yards and two touchdowns on nine carries.

Not to be outdone, Ben Grant rounded out the three-headed Blue Blazes backfield monster with 91 yards and a score on eight carries.

Heath chipped in 114 yards and two touchdowns on 7 of 11 passing through the air, and added a pair of interceptions on defense

“I think it’s a definitely a challenge,” Grant said of trying to stop Westbrook’s multi-faceted attack. “It’s nice for us, we can pick one and run him and we can go all game like that, so I think that’s why our running game is so successful.”

For Grant it was especially nice. After a big first game in which he ran for 161 yards and two touchdowns against Mountain Valley, teams had keyed on him each of the last two weeks as Bollig and Joyce got the bulk of the yards. Saturday, everyone was involved.

“It’s nice to get runs in again, have some open field, it’s a great feeling,” Grant said. “I’ve just been waiting for it and we had a great game running the ball today.”

Although it would turn into a blowout victory, the opening stanza didn’t foretell what was to come.

Playing in their first and only Saturday game of the season, compared to Fryeburg’s third already, the Blue Blazes started slowly as the Raiders took the kickoff and marched the ball 65 yards on nine plays, capped by quarterback Andrew Rascoe’s keeper up the middle on 3rd and 6 from the six to open the scoring.

Joyce’s nice return set Westbrook up at the Fryeburg 37 on their first possession, but a fumbled snap wasted the good field position.

“We just had to bounce back, it’s a Saturday, which is new for us, it’s sunny and they play like this all the time,” Grant said of the slow start. “They had that upper hand to start, but we got back to it.”

The Blue Blazes started their next series at their 40 and ran the ball eight times right at the Raiders. Bollig carried six times for 43 yards on the drive, which he capped with a 1-yard plunge and two-point conversion score to make it 8-8.

The teams traded turnovers in the next series, with Heath picking off Rascoe at the Westbrook 11 before fumbling on the next play to give the ball right back to the Raiders.

“Definitely had some mental mistakes,” Heath said, “but I feel like we cleaned those up.”

The Blue Blazes defense forced a four and out and then drove 87 yards to take a 16-8 lead five minutes into the second thanks to a Joyce 20-yard run and Bollig conversion.

Joyce’s score came off a counter, a misdirection play that requires a fake handoff and complicated blocking scheme up front, resulting in a tough read for the defense. Run to perfection, as the Blue Blazes did several times Saturday, it’s a tough play to stop, as Fryeburg found out.

“That’s been on of our problems in the past, we haven’t been able to execute that,” Heath said of the counter. “We haven’t been able to block it right or run it right, and we nailed it this week.”

Grant, who had an 87-yard touchdown run on a counter called back, agreed.

“The faking always is a big thing. We rally worked on blocking for that play all week,” he said. “People just believe in it, so we go with it.”

The back-and-forth affair swung again when Raiders running back Devine Dockery took an option pitch 68 yards to make it 16-14 at the 6:05 mark of the second, but it was all Blue Blazes the rest of the half.

First Keenan Lowe dragged multiple Raiders into the end zone for a 21-yard catch that finished off a 71-yard drive, and Heath then scored from one yard out to make it 32-14.

Heath and Kevin Grescoviak both picked off Rascoe in the final three minutes of the half as the Raiders failed to keep up.

“I thought we hung in there. Fryeburg’s a good team, they’ve got some good athletes so they’re going to make plays and we just kind of withstood it,” Westbrook coach Jeff Guerette said.

Westbrook had the ball first coming out of the break and didn’t hesitate to drive home the final nail when Aaron Duncanson beat his man down the sideline and Heath found him for a 35-yard score, the split end’s first of the season.

“Basically he beat his man and all it took was one step,” Heath said of the play. “We’ve been practicing that all week, rep after rep.”

Dockery answered with a 7-yard run to get it back to 38-22, but from there the Westbrook ground and pound game took over as Joyce, Grant and Kyle Schumacher scored on 1-, 20- and 5-yard runs as Westbrook cruised to a 58-28 victory.

The big win swings momentum back in the Blue Blazes’ favor as the second half of the season commences. A tough trip to red-hot Cape Elizabeth is next.

“It’s wide open,” Guerette said of Western Class B. “I think we’re in there somewhere but there’s six or seven teams who are in there somewhere, so I don’t know exactly where we fit in yet.”

As the coach says, it’s still to early to tell where Westbrook might end up heading forward. But his players do know they’re in a place few prior Blue Blazes teams have been in the past.

“I don’t remember Westbrook ever being 3-1,” Heath said. “So it’s kind of a new path for us.”

Westbrook running back Collin Joyce tries to gain the edge on the Fryeburg defense late in the second quarter. Joyce ran the ball nine times for 99 yards and two touchdowns as the Blue Blazes beat the Raiders 58-28. (Staff photos by Cameron Dunbar)
Westbrook quarterback Kyle Heath tries to gain extra yards as Fryeburg’s Bright Amoako tries to haul him down in the second quarter. Heath completed seven of his 10 throws for 114 yards and two touchdowns and added another score on the ground in the Blue Blazes 58-28 victory. 
Westbrook tight end Keenan Lowe extends the ball over the goal line to finish a 21-yard touchdown catch late in the second quarter. The score put the Blue Blazes up 22-14 as they went on to defeat the Raiders 58-28.
Westbrook fullback Cale Bollig tries to power through Fryeburg Devine Dockery in the first quarter. Bollig carried the ball 17 times for 127 yards and a touchdown in the Blue Blazes 58-28 victory.
Westbrook defensive lineman Alex Gauvin, right, goes in for the tackle on Fryeburg quarterback Andrew Rascoe in the first quarter while Kyle Schumacher tries to trip him up.
Westbrook defensive back Kyle Heath wraps up Fryeburg running back Kyle Bonner in the first quarter.
Westbrook defensive back Kyle Heath hits Fryeburg running back Devine Dockery in the first quarter.
Westbrook linebacker Collin Joyce hauls down Fryeburg quarterback Andrew Rascoe for a loss in the first quarter.