MADISON – Once Jay got the first minute out of the way, Saturday night’s visit to Madison wasn’t so bad.

Madison scored long touchdowns on its first two plays from scrimmage. For their part, though, the Tigers tucked an 83-yard kick return by Bill Calden into the middle.

And after the Bulldogs got that second home run out of their system. Jay rattled off 38 unanswered points and breezed to a 45-20 Western Class C football victory.

“We didn’t start out very good,“ said senior two-way lineman Matt Lancaster. “That was a weird start to the game.”

Actually, the weirdness continued, even with optimum weather conditions a day after Friday’s postponement.

Despite five total touchdowns in the first quarter, the teams outnumbered those with six combined turnovers through 12 minutes.

The ball changed hands by fumble or interception 13 times in all, eight into Jay’s hands.

Lancaster recovered two fumbles and notched two of Jay’s four quarterback sacks. James Barker pounced on a loose ball and picked off a pass.

“We’ve got some things to clean up. Too many turnovers, but I thought we played well,” said Jay coach Mark Bonnevie. “Defensively I thought we were great after those first two plays. I thought we were going to get into some Madden (video game) stuff for a second.”

There were three touchdowns in the first 56 seconds.

Sandwiched around Calden’s special teams salvo were a 75-yard touchdown pass from Stephen Cusson to Stephen Day that was initially tipped by a Jay defender, and Cusson’s 63-yard scamper on an option keeper.

“We just had to get in there and make some tackles,” said Jay lineman Ron Holland. “It was just the big plays that got us.”

Jay’s offense had plenty in store. Jordan D. Couture ran for the first of his three first-half touchdowns, a 4-yarder, to get the Tigers (3-2) within one.

Calden matched that with a 4-yard TD and a carbon copy two-point conversion rush to put Jay in front 21-14 with 6:37 still remaining in the first quarter.

Things settled down for a while. Jay lost another apparent touchdown run when the officials conferred and ruled that Andrew Stearns lost possession before he crossed the goal line. Kyle Williams recovered for a Madison touchback.

Fumble recoveries by Calden and Mat Ferland set up two scoring drives before the half. Couture capped those with TD runs of 15 and 4 yards for a 33-14 lead.

“It took the first couple minutes there to find out what we had to do,” Lancaster said. “We had a little talk while we were out there.”

Jay turned two more Madison turnovers into early fourth-quarter scores before the junior varsities mopped up. Stearns and Ryan Pelletier each delivered a TD run for the Tigers.

Couture accumulated all but eight of his 118 yards in the first half. Zach Bonnevie was 6-for-13 through the air for 127 yards as the Tigers snapped a two-game losing skid.

“They recovered,” Coach Bonnevie said of his team. “They didn’t let those kinds of plays bother them and stayed positive, which is a plus.”

Cusson accounted for 175 total yards, but only 37 after the opening minute.

Senior QB Ryan Turcotte threw a 30-yard strike to Kyle Demchak for Madison’s final TD.

Bonnevie and Kyle Storer each had an interception for Jay. Zach White picked off two for Madison. Travis Emerson and Marcus Berry joined Williams with fumble recoveries for the Bulldogs (1-4).

koakes@sunjournal.com