Tigers hold off Houlton for first win of the season

DEXTER — The Dexter Regional High School 8-man football team suffered three losses in as many games over the first few weeks of the season with each coming by double digits.

Against Houlton High School during the Tigers’ Homecoming game on the evening of Sept. 25, Dexter played with the lead and held off the Shiretowners to earn the team’s first victory of 2026. The Tigers are now 1-3 and Houlton, an 8-Man Large School program, fell to 0-4.

“We started with a big game week one, a lot of pressure,” senior quarterback Bodhi Langlais said, with Dexter playing its first-ever home night game in the opener. “We just kept working and pushing. We pushed our guys, we pushed everyone around us and it resulted in a big win today.”

Dexter clung to a 14-12 lead for all of the third quarter before getting into the endzone on the first play of the fourth.

Langlais rolled right and he found senior Tristan Hopkins-Watrous wide open a short ways down the field. Hopkins-Watrous ran 34 yards down the sideline for the touchdown and 20-12 lead (the 2-point conversion pass was incomplete).

The quarterback passed for 54 yards on a 4-of-7 performance with a touchdown. He also ran 13 times for 56 yards.

Junior Shane Bowden came up with an interception of Houlton junior quarterback Hunter Sanford on the ensuing possession to put Dexter at the opposition’s 35-yard line.

The Shiretowner defense came up with a stop on fourth down to set the offense up at the 36-yard line. 

The Tiger defense followed with a fourth down stop of its own. A measurement via the chains showed that Sanford was a few inches shy on 4th-and-2 from the Dexter-44.

The offense then ran a minute off the clock before Hopkins-Watrous’ punt rolled out at the Houlton-33 with 2:56 to go.

The Shiretowners had a first down to get inside Tiger territory. A spike stopped the clock but took up a down before a screen pass was dropped as the pass rush kept working.

“We have a lot of subs for defense so we can just rotate a lot of guys and it gives a lot of guys breaks and we can keep firing on defense all night long,” Langlais said. “We worked on defense and we ran a lot. We got our endurance up.”

Houlton used its final timeout with 1:45 remaining to go over the play. Sanford hit sophomore Bentlee Sirois for a completion about six yards down the field in front of the defensive back. Sirois tried a hook and lateral but the ball fell to the turf and Houlton recovered well shy of the sticks. Dexter could then line up in victory formation with Langlais taking a couple of knees.

“Discipline, that’s the biggest thing we have been preaching,” head coach Andrew Levensalor said. “The guys need to play together as one and keep playing disciplined football. They continue to get better and that’s what we continue to preach at practices.”

“It’s hard to recover from three big losses but they did it tonight and I’m super proud of them,” he said.

Dexter scored on the game’s opening possession after electing to receive.  The Tigers drove 40 yards in eight plays to reach Houlton’s 4-yard line on 4th-and-goal.

Hopkins-Watrous ran left and spun across the goal line for the touchdown. Langlais followed with a 2-point rush for the 8-0 lead.

Hopkins-Watrous rushed six times for 40 yards and a touchdown while also having the 34-yard touchdown reception.

“The mentality in the locker room before the game was ‘if we get that ball, we’re going to score and we’re going to set the tone’ and that’s exactly what we did,” Langlais said about the plan for the first drive which took just over five minutes despite starting inside the 50-yard line.

“That was actually the plan, we wanted the ball, we wanted to drive it down,” Levensalor said. 

He said the offense had a trick play at the ready, which was not used, and mixed in freshman Bentley Roderick as a signal-caller for some snaps.

“We played together tonight and that’s what you’ve got to do in football,” Levensalor said.

The defense worked to contain Sanford, who rushed 20 times for a contest-best 73 yards and a touchdown while three other Houlton ball carriers had -7 yards in six attempts. The plan, Levensalor said, was to let Sanford throw and rely on the pass coverage. 

Sanford did complete 13 passes for 172 yards – he also caught a pass for 10 yards — but the defense also forced 16 incompletions including Bowden’s pick.

Junior Will Simpson had the other Dexter touchdown, a 9-yard rush in the second quarter to put the team ahead 14-0. Simpson led his team with 63 yards on the ground in seven attempts.

Houlton got to the endzone twice in the quarter but the Tiger defense stopped both conversion tries.

Dexter will be in action next when the team travels to face South 8-Man Small School program Mount View High School of Thorndike (0-3 coming off a bye) at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 3.

8-MAN FOOTBALL

Dexter 20, Houlton 12

HOU 0 12 0 0  – 12

DEX 8 6 0 8 – 20

First: D – Hopkins-Watrous 4 yds (Langlais rush)

Second: D – Simpson 9 yds (rush fail); H – Sanford 12 yds (rush fail); H – Sirois 42 yds from Sanford (pass fail)

Fourth: D – Hopkins-Watrous 34 yds from Langlais (pass fail)

Passing: H – Sanford 13-of-29 172 yds TD Int; Tapley 1-of-1 10 yds; D – Langlais 4-of-7 54 yds TD; Roderick 0-of-1

Receiving: H – Sirois 5, 68 yds TD; Lovely 4, 72 yds; Zyskowski 3, 25 yds; Stewart 1, 7 yds; D – Simpson 2, -5 yds; Hopkins-Watrous 1, 34 yds TD; Freeman 1, 25 yds

Rushing: H – Sanford 20, 73 yds TD; Zyskowski 2, 1 yd; Stewart 1, 1 yd; Lilley 3, -9 yds; D – Simpson 7, 63 yds TD; Langlais 13, 56 yds; Hopkins-Watrous 6, 40 yds TD; Shirley 2, 14 yds; Sillanpaa 4, 9 yds; Roderick 1, -2 yds

Records: H 0-4, D 1-3