ORANGE — Following a three-and-out on its opening drive of the game, the Mahar football team locked in for the remainder of the first half in its season opener against Drury on Friday. 

After the stop, the Senators proceeded to score touchdowns on their next five drives to close out the first half and take control of the game, many of those scores being set up by big plays. 

The Drury offense was unable to answer, as Mahar took a 36-0 lead into the half before cruising to a 44-0 independent triumph at the Woodward Complex. 

“This is a testament to the work these boys have put in,” Senators coach Percy Eady said. “We really rocked this thing this offseason and these guys were coming to all the workouts. For me, I like to see the turnaround so quickly but the work is far from over.” 

Explosive plays propelled Mahar on Friday. 

The Senators tallied seven plays that went for 10-plus yards, two of which resulted in scores. Another touchdown was set up by a long Morgan Softic punt return, with Mahar showing it doesn’t need to possess the ball long to put points on the board. 

“I gave them a hard time because all we scored on last year was big plays,” Eady said. “I told them we have to be able to work the ball up the field. Now, a lot of these today came on long plays. I’ll take them as they come but we have to understand we need to make some first downs as well.” 

After stopping the Blue Devils on fourth down near midfield, Mahar went on a four play drive, with Softic breaking off a 36-yard scamper to set the Senators up at the Drury 1-yard-line, where Malaki Grummell plowed in one play later to give the Sens the opening lead. Jayden Delgado ran in the two-point try to make it an 8-0 game with 4:37 to go in the first. 

The Mahar defense forced a punt and Softic returned it to the Blue Devils 3. Delgado powered in on the first play of the drive and tacked on the 2-point try himself to make it a 16-0 lead with 3:22 to go in the first. 

Drury punted on its next drive and after a number of penalties, the Senators found themselves back up facing a third-and-32 from their own 15. 

Softic rolled out and fired a bomb to Delgado down the right sideline. The ball hit Delgado in stride at the 50 and he took off to the end zone, giving Mahar a 22-0 lead with 8:46 to play in the half. 

The Blue Devils turned it over on downs and following a 24-yard run by Delgado and a 20-yard run from Softic, the Senators found themselves again at the Drury 1. Grummell ran it in and Delgado converted the two-point try, giving Mahar a 30-0 lead with 3:27 to go in the half. 

Following a Drury punt Grummell ripped off a 55-yard touchdown on a fullback dive that gave the Senators their 36-0 lead going into the half. 

The Blue Devils had their best drive of the game to open the second half, going on a 14-play drive that marched down to the Mahar 1 thanks to first down carries from Caelan Briggs, Hudah Levy and quarterback Jameson Bayliss, but the Senator defense stood tough on the goal line and stuffed Bayliss on a run at the 1 on fourth down, preventing Drury from putting points on the board. 

Softic weaved his way for an 84-yard touchdown run on a quarterback keeper, juking his way into the end zone to close out the scoring with under a minute to go in the third. Delgado added the 2-point try to make it 44-0. 

While a dominant win to open the season, there’s still plenty for Eady and his staff to work on in the two weeks before Mahar plays again. The Sens will travel to North Adams to play McCann Tech on Sept. 20.

“The devil is in the details in this,” Eady said. “What happens sometimes is it’s easy to get lost in the result and not go back and look at the details. It’s hard to do that when you win but I’m the kind of guy that refuses to do that. I’ll be looking at all the nuances and finding all the things we need to work on Monday.”