Only five of the 26 Maine high school football games Friday night were decided by seven points or less. I was lucky enough to see one of those five, and Lawrence-Bangor really was a good one.

The game was a great matchup between Bangor's speed and Lawrence's size. Early on, Lawrence simply could not stop Bangor's running game. Lonnie Hackett and Adam Billings ran through big holes or beat the defense to the outside on sweeps. Six of Bangor's 16 rushing attempts in the first half went for 11 yards or more.

Even though the Rams led 17-0 in the first quarter, there was always a sense that Lawrence could come back. At halftime, I said to a couple people, "The first half went as well as Bangor could have hoped, and they're still only up by 10."

Bangor looked like it would keep scoring in the second half, but fumbled the ball away at the Lawrence 25 on its first drive. It was the second huge mistake by the Rams. The first was a dropped snap by the punter which set up Lawrence's first touchdown.

Actually, both teams performed some self-destructive acts. Lawrence had four turnovers for the second straight week. After taking 11 penalties last week against Cony, the Bulldogs had seven for 59 yards against Bangor. Not too many teams can overcome that many turnovers and penalties in the playoffs.

"We're trying to focus on that," Lawrence coach John Hersom said. "Some of the lining up offsides and that kind of stuff, we do have to correct, because those are some things that we tried to address this week, but we still haven't gotten to where we'd like to have it. We don't want to continue to be working behind schedule like that."

The Bulldogs showed amazing depth in their running attack. I counted eight different players with rushing attempts. Anthony Boudreau led Lawrence with 42 yards rushing in the first half, but didn't carry the ball at all in the second half because of an ankle injury. The Bulldogs still had 153 yards rushing in the second half. Christian Powers had all five of his carries in the fourth quarter, gaining 9, 11, 15, 11 and 9 yards.

"The fourth quarter, he had some life in his legs," Hersom said of Powers. "By that time, Brock Lawrence was starting to show he was tired. So Christian Powers really lifted us there in the fourth quarter."

I also shouldn't forget quarterback Ben Violette's role for the Bulldogs. Violette completed four of his five passes in the second half, and overall was 7 of 14 for 131 yards and two touchdowns and an interception. Plug in those numbers on the NFL's quarterback rating scale, which is basically 0 to 100 with players sometimes going over, and you get a 92.6 rating. Not bad at all.

Lawrence lineman Tyler McKeen was down for a while after injuring his right knee early in the third quarter. McKeen had to be carried off the field. Every time I've seen that, it's been an ACL injury. Here's hoping for a less serious injury in this case.