AUBURN — Lewiston coach Bill County gave Jeff Turcotte the words every high school senior running back longs to here in their last game.

“Coming up the stairs out of the locker room, I just looked at Turc and said, ‘This thing’s on your back. You’re going to get the ball,'” County said. “Everybody in the stadium knows he’s getting the ball and he can still do the things he can do.”

Turcotte got the ball 31 times for 331 yards and all five Lewiston touchdowns to lead the Blue Devils to a 35-15 win in the 168th meeting with Edward Little Saturday at Walton Field.

After falling to EL, 26-7, last year, the Blue Devils recaptured the Alan Clark Sr. Memorial Trophy and now lead the all-time series, 89-67-12.

“We definitely needed to step up,” said Turcotte, a senior tailback/linebacker who also had an interception.”This means a lot, trust me. I’m going to see these half these EL kids further down the road, maybe even tomorrow, and it’s going to be great to sit down with them and have that talk about how well both of us played and how well we played against each other.”

“He’s pretty special,” County said. “There are times when I think he might be tired. Joe McKinnon has been playing with a bad knee for the past three weeks and I knew in the second half there was a limited amount of  time I could use him.”

McKinnon (12 carries, 153 yards) made the most of his limited action. But it was Turcotte who answered the bell in the second half, rushing for touchdowns of six and 43 yards (on his final carry) to help the Blue Devils (5-4) pull away from a 20-9 halftime lead.

Turcotte and McKinnon paced a running game that piled up 440 yards behind an offensive line that had to recover from the loss of two centers to injury in the opening minutes. Senior David Demers shifted over from guard, and the right side of the line, guard Mike Nazaroff and tackle Rudy Pandora, opened big holes for the running backs.

“We just did our blocking assignments, really. We’re taught to block that way for a reason, because it works,” Pandora said. “David did well filling in at center, even though he didn’t take a single snap in two weeks.”

“That made us kind of nervous,” County said of the sudden slide down the center depth chart.  “But Dave Demers is a kid that’s played offensive guard for us, we shifted him down and didn’t miss a beat. And Brian Wigant, the young kid that went in in David’s place at guard has had some injury problems all year, plays with a body cast, and yet we were able to do the things that we did on the ground today, and that’s pretty impressive.”

It wasn’t an impressive start for Turcotte or Lewiston. He fumbled on the game’s first carry and Edward Little (3-6) recovered at the Blue Devil 40. Darnnell Hairston kept the drive alive by converting on 4th and 1 at the 10. But Pandora and Kevin St. Pierre stacked him up on 3rd and goal from the 3 and forced the Eddies to settle for Luke Farrago’s 20-yard field goal.

“It was one-on-one blocking, and I just find it so much easier to try and blitz on that, and I just crashed in,” Pandora said.

The Devils’ next possession stalled in the red zone. But the defense backed the Eddies up and forced a short punt to the EL 43. On first down, Turcotte took a toss to the left, cut back inside against the grain, broke an arm tackle at the 35 and raced to the end zone. He added the two-point conversion to make it 8-3.

The Red Eddies needed just four plays, all by all-purpose back Josh Delong(12 carries, 54 yards, five catches, 125 yards), to reclaim the lead. After three runs got the Eddies to their own 43, Delong made a leaping catch of a Sean Ford pass, pivoted and took off down the right sideline for a 57-yard touchdown that put EL in front, 9-8.

EL barely got a chance to enjoy the lead, as Turcotte put Lewiston in front for good with a 79-yard run 1:11 into the second quarter. Turcotte tacked on his third touchdown with  a three-yard run on Lewiston’s next drive. Interceptions by McKinnon and Caleb Johnson helped keep the Eddies off the board the rest of the first half.

“Today, I thought defensively we were impressive,” County said. “We gave up nine points pretty quickly and then held them right up until almost that last drive of the game. I honestly thought that was the key to the game.”

 The Eddies threatened to cut the lead to single digits by marching to Lewiston’s 5 on the opening drive of the second half. But a false start set them back and they had to settle for a 26-yard field goal try, which the Devils blocked.

“We moved the ball, but we couldn’t complete the deal the first time,” EL coach Dave Sterling said. “We figured we’d take the points early, kick the field goal and figured we’d get back down there again. We got the touchdown to go up, and then we got down to the red zone and couldn’t get it in.”

Lewiston closed out the third quarter with Turcotte’s six-yard touchdwon run and Chris Madden’s two-point pass to Joe McKinnon to make it 28-9.

Gage Clavet recovered a fumble for the Eddies to set up their next score, a one-yard run by Ford, that made it 28-15. But Turcotte scored from 43 yards out two plays into Lewiston’s next offensive series to close it out.

The game ended the season for both teams, which did not make the playoffs in the Pine Tree Conference’s new four-team format. It is the first time at least one of the two schools hasn’t made the playoffs in a single year since 2005.

“There’s definitely a lot of disappointment we’re not going to the playoffs, but it definitely feels good to have something to fall back on,” Turcotte said. “You don’t want to send anyone home disappointed.”