LIVERMORE FALLS — Brandon Frey can’t remember playing a better half of football than he did Friday night for Spruce Mountain.

Drive after drive, Frey found himself in space and, eventually, in the end zone to help the Phoenix to a 49-14 victory over Madison/Carrabec. Spruce Mountain improves to 4-0 with the win. 

Spruce Mountain player wear decals to honor Larry Lord, a maintenence worker who was injured in last week’s explosion in Farmington. Adam Robinson/Sun Journal Buy this Photo

Frey scored four offensive touchdowns in the first half, two receiving and two rushing, then took the opening kickoff of the second half back 73 yards for a score. 

“He’s a good athlete,” Spruce Mountain coach David Frey said. “He’s worked hard to get to where he is. When he’s in the open field, it’s hard to catch.

“That’s probably one of his better games. In the second half of the Poland game, he took that game over, and against Camden Hills he had three touchdowns. He’s just an athlete. It’s hard to explain. We just have some weapons.”

On the second play from scrimmage for Spruce Mountain, after the Phoenix recovered a Madison (1-3) fumble on the opening kickoff, Frey scampered 7 yards for his first touchdown. 

Madison used a few weapons on offense to drive itself down the field before failing on a fourth-down conversion at Spruce’s 30-yard-line. 

Phoenix quarterback Jack Bryant wasted no time on the ensuing drive, with back-to-back runs to the left for 27 and then 13 yards. After a 12-yard gain from Brandon Coates, Bryant found Coates in the back of the end zone on a pass that was tipped into the receiver’s hands for a 14-0 Spruce lead.

“He makes it run,” David Frey said of Bryant. “He’s the key to that offense. There’s a lot of reading in it and he does a great job. He ran well in the first quarter and he’s just a tough runner.”

In the second quarter, Brandon Frey got going on both sides of the ball. 

He scored on a difficult 14-yard run in which he started toward the right sideline, cut back to the left sideline but couldn’t find an opening, then went back to the middle where he finally found a lane to the end zone. 

“As soon as he gets it, he’s so shifty,” Bryant said. “(Frey) has options when he gets it.”

Madison went three-and-out on the next drive, allowing Bryant and Frey another chance at offense late in the quarter. 

Spruce capitalized with a 59-yard touchdown pass from Bryant to Frey on the right sideline that flew over the top and was almost too far for Frey, who tipped it into the air before catching it and blazing the corner covering him. 

Frey then intercepted a pass with 10 seconds left and ran it back 59 yards to put the Phoenix in the red zone. On the next play, Frey caught a touchdown in front of the goalposts with only three second left in the half to put Spruce up 35-0.

Frey wasn’t done. 

The senior received the second half kickoff from Madison and slithered his way through the wave of players to score his fifth touchdown. Frey said he knew it was happening before the play even started. 

“It felt amazing,” Brandon Frey said. “I called it, too. I was like, ‘We’re going to go out and I am going to run it back.’ I was telling everyone on the kick return team that I was going to run it back and I did. It felt so great.”

Coates scored his second touchdown on Spruce’s first offensive possession of the half, a 45-yard run to help Spruce to a 49-0 lead. 

Madison finally reached the scoreboard on its next drive. 

Quarterback Bryce Willette helped the Madison drive along, first with a 20-yard pass to Cameron Cobb and then an 18-yard run to setup a 1-yard touchdown run by Keaghan Perkins to make it 49-7 in the fourth quarter. 

Madison scored again with 11 seconds left in the game on a 15-yard pitch-and-catch from Willette to Nichols that made it 49-14. 

“Going 4-0 halfway through is great,” Bryant said. “We have a tough schedule left, but this momentum will push us through.”