With the Fryeburg Academy Raiders driving late in the game, the Gray-New Gloucester Patriots defense created a turnover deep in their own territory.

Zack Haskell popped the ball loose near the end zone after Fryeburg completed a pass and Jacob Sanborn fell on the ball in a scrum to force a touchback as Gray-New Gloucester held on for a 22-20 victory to improve 2-0 on the season.

“We got the win,” Gray-New Gloucester coach Mark Renna said. “It was sloppy for us, we didn’t execute as well, it was hot out there. It was a great game — not to take anything from Fryeburg — we didn’t beat them, we just came away with the win.” 

Austin Chase had a big game on both sides of the ball. On offense, he went for 165 yards rushing on 11 carries with two touchdowns. His first touchdown came in the second quarter on a 78-yard dash. The second was also on a long run as he scampered 60-yards to the house.

On defense he had seven tackles. Zack Terrell also had a key turnover for the Patriots.

The Raiders jumped out to the 8-0 lead after the first quarter. Gray-New Gloucester appeared to have a 16-8 lead going into halftime, but on a fake punt attempt on their own one-yard line to run the final 2.8 ticks out, they were tackled with .2 seconds left and turned the ball over to Fryeburg. The Raiders quarterback Ryan Gullickson scored on the final play of the half to pull within 16-14 at the break.

Fryeburg took the lead in the third quarter to go up 20-16 on a quarterback scramble by Gullickson for his second touchdown of the game. Chase scored his second touchdown early in the fourth quarter.

Gullickson had a big game, Renna said, though stats were not immediately available.

“I don’t know how many yards he had, but he ran all over us today,” Renna said. “We were worried about that at the beginning of the week, watching the film on those guys. We knew we had to stop them and we didn’t do it today. We contained him a little bit and we just got the job done. We squeaked out a 22-20 win.”

The Patriots have their first home game of the season Friday night in their Homecoming game against the Freeport Falcons. Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. 

nfournier@sunjournal.com