WINTHROP — After watching its lead cut in half suddenly Friday night, the Winthrop/Monmouth football team used the same approach in that moment that it had used all week.

The Ramblers lost a tough one to Lisbon on opening night, but moved on quickly. They had the same reaction when Traip broke a long touchdown run and was back in the game.

“We just had to do what we’re trying to do, what we’ve worked on all week,” junior back Nate Scott said. “That was just putting it behind us and looking forward to what we needed to do to be successful. We came together as a team and did a great job.”

Winthrop regrouped and scored a pair of touchdowns in the second quarter and barely looked back in a 45-14 win over Traip. The Ramblers dominated on the ground and took advantage of Rangers turnovers while scoring five consecutive times to break the game open.

“We’ve got a big stretch coming up here with some tough teams,” Winthrop/Monmouth coach Dave St. Hilaire said. “Traip comes at you with 16 or 17 guys and they fight you tooth and nail. We wanted to change up some mistakes from last week. We had a couple of turnovers that we could have put something in, but we had some penalties. Other than that, we executed better.”

The Ramblers recovered three fumbles and turned them all into touchdowns. That’s something the team didn’t do in the 14-7 loss against Lisbon.

“We’re a fast team and we’re an aggressive team,” St. Hilaire said. “The kids are just starting to learn that fast and aggressive teams cause turnovers. They saw on the film last week. We didn’t cause any turnovers against Lisbon, but they saw the opportunities.”

The Ramblers rushed for 311 yards on 57 carries. After marching down the field on the opening drive, Winthrop/Monmouth began asserting itself in the ground game. Traip struggled to stop the Ramblers the rest of the night. Alec Brown had 94 yards on 14 carries and a touchdown. Scott finished with two scores and 66 yards on 18 tries. Quarterback Matt Ingram threw a TD pass and finished with 76 yards passing on five completions.

“We all executed what we had to do,” Scott said. “We all did our job. We all did it as a team.”

The Ramblers built a quick 14-0 lead. Scott finished off the opening drive with a 16-yard run down the right side with 9:51 left in the first quarter. After Traip fumbled away the kick-off, the Ramblers turned that opportunity into a 14-0 lead. Ingram hit Bennett Brooks on a nice fourth-and-four pass from six yards out.

“We’ve got a lot of good skill players,” St. Hilaire said. “We can play tough football, smashmouth. We can also spread it out. We want to use the whole field.”

Winthrop/Monmouth appeared in command, but Traip’s Evan Porter  took the next play from scrimmage 43 yards for a score with 8:07 left in the quarter. The Rangers were within seven at 14-7.

Porter finished with 157 yards on nine carries and two touchdowns, but aside from an 80-yard scoring run late in the game, the Ramblers held him in check after that first touchdown. He had just 34 yards in between scoring rushes.

“We adjusted our formation and changed our mindset as to what we needed to stop and it really worked well,” Scott said.

Traip’s next possession nearly ended on an interception but a Rambler penalty nullified that. The Rangers were still forced to punt. Then the next possession, the Rangers fumbled the ball away. It was recovered by Brown. A penalty nixed his 47-yard run for a score, but the Ramblers finished off the opportunity five plays later. Dustin Tripp took it in from the 4 with 7:31 left.

Traip had a Porter 75-yard kick return brought back by a penalty. The Rangers possession then stalled. Winthrop/Monmouth took advantage of its final possession before the half. Ingram hit a pair of pass plays and Scott rushed in from the 10 with 30 seconds left for a 28-7 lead.

The Ramblers added to the lead with a Brown two-yard run in the third. Then after Tyler Cody kicked a 28-yard field goal, Antonio Meucci ran it in from the 38 for a 45-7 lead. Porter added his 80-yard run with 3:35 left.

“We put it behind us and we were looking forward,” Scott said. “We knew we didn’t do as well as we should have last week. We needed to make a statement.”

kmills@sunjournal.com