KITTERY — For a season-opener, it was close to the worst possible scenario for the Old Orchard Beach football team: Take a 50-minute bus ride, stretch out, warm up, get mentally prepared to play Traip Academy, and then, five minutes before kickoff, a bolt of lightning appears in the distance.

Despite a largely sunny sky, the streak of lightning necessitated a 30-minute delay, followed by another half-hour delay when another lightning strike popped up even farther away, forcing two football teams ready to play to wait around for an hour in stifling 88-degree heat.

“It was bummer,” Old Orchard Beach quarterback Bryan Roberts said. “We show up, we get our adrenaline flowing, we’re ready to go into battle. Then, all of a sudden, we’re told we can’t play for another half hour, and then another half hour after that.

“When the time comes, we had to be ready to get going and pump ourselves back up.”

When the time did come to play, a full 55 minutes after scheduled kickoff time, the Seagulls were fully prepared, scoring on their first drive and never looking back on the way to a 26-6 victory over the Rangers in a Western Class D game at Memorial Field.

Roberts paced the offense with 85 yards and two touchdowns on 11 carries and 63 more yards through the air, and OOB’s first-team defense allowed Traip just 35 total yards through 3 1/2 quarters before a late 95-yard touchdown run by the Rangers’ Evan Porter against the backup defense ended the shutout.

Considering the conditions, it was a fine liftoff to a season full of high hopes for the Seagulls, head coach Dean Plante said.

“It was an awkward way to start the season,” Plante said. “It’s hard to keep kids up. You get up for a game, and then there’s a letdown. Then you get back up, and there’s a letdown. But the kids responded well at the beginning.”

After forcing Traip into an opening drive punt, Old Orchard Beach started its own opening drive at midfield, but soon found itself in a third and 30 situation following a holding penalty and a fumbled snap.

That’s when one of OOB’s new additions made his first impact as wide receiver Erik Hogan ”“ a junior playing his first year of high school football ”“ got behind the Traip secondary for a 54-yard completion down to the Ranger’s one-yard line.

“I saw him down field, but I don’t even have to look to know he’s going to beat the corner back,” Roberts said of Hogan. “He’s one of the quickest kids in the state, and that’s definitely something we needed this year.”

“It was third and long, and Eric’s a great athlete and made a good adjustment,” said Plante. “Bryan’s got a strong arm, and he put it out there, so that’s just athlete to athlete. We should never be third and 30, but that’s what good teams do ”“ they find a way in tough spots, and that got us up.”

Roberts went over for a touchdown on the next play but missed the extra point to make it 6-0 six minutes in.

OOB’s next drive was ended on its first play by a botched handoff, but after forcing Traip into a second-straight three and out, the Seagulls took over at their own 37 and drove 63 yards and seven plays, with Roberts scoring his second touchdown of the day on a swashbuckling 36-yard run down the right side set up by a nice block by Hogan.

OOB could have added to its 12-0 lead before the half, but its next drive was stopped when a Roberts’ pass went off the hand of Hogan and into the arms of Rangers defender David Gibson.

The Seagulls got the ball back thanks to more solid defense as Dylan Creswell sacked quarterback Angelo Succi on the first play of the Rangers’ resulting drive and knocked the ball loose, with Logan Melnik picking it up and returning it down to the Traip 20.

But again, OOB couldn’t capitalize, gaining no yards on its next four plays.

The defensive stand seemed to galvanize the Traip offense, which then put together its best drive of the day, needing nine plays ”“ and a key personal foul for illegal helmet contact called on the Seagulls ”“ to drive 72 yards down to the OOB eight with under a minute to go.

But on fourth and four, Succi’s pass beyond the first-down line was dropped by Matt Henderson, and OOB went into the half with a two touchdown lead, one that Plante thought probably should have been bigger.

“I was a little disappointed in the first half,” Plante said. “I thought we had a chance to kind of put them away, and to their credit, they made a nice drive at the end and it very well could have been a one-core game at half. So we were preaching at half that the first drive in the third quarter was going to be big.”

The offense took Plante’s words to heart, taking the second-half kickoff and pounding the ball up the middle on seven-straight plays for a 52-yard scoring drive capped by an Andrew Graves seven-yard TD run.

Roberts found tight end Joe Anderson open in the end zone for the two-point conversion, and it was 20-0.

“I loved the way our kids came out on that drive. It was domination up front with our front five and (fullback) Hunter Boutot,” Plante said. “They really hit.”

Traip’s next three drives were stopped by a Roberts interception, a sack of Succi and a fumble, and OOB put the game out of reach for good when Hogan took the ball around the end and scored on a 17-yard run to up the lead to 26-0 with 10:46 left in the fourth.

With the OOB reserves in, Porter then nearly tripled the Rangers’ total offense for the day when he ripped off a 95-yard run down the left sideline to get Traip on the board, but it did little to mask what had been a dominant day by the Seagulls’ defense, including the three turnovers, 11 tackles for loss and four sacks.

“Our defense definitely stepped up today compared to the preseason,” Roberts said. “We let up six points the whole game, and in preseason, we let up about 40 points in a total of six quarters. That was definitely a big improvement, a big help. It needed to be there for regular-season week one.

“That allowed us to pull away and get the win. We did what we needed to do and got the job done.”

Mother Nature then ensured that the game ended much in the same way as it began, as thunder was heard with 3:27 left and OOB driving inside the Traip 10, compelling the referees to bring down the curtain on a 20-point opening-game Seagulls’ victory.

“It’s tough to complain with the heat, the rain, the delays, the bizarro world,” Plante said. “It was a good win.”

— Staff Writer Cameron Dunbar can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 323 or cdunbar@journaltribune.com.