The Maine Mammoths, the newest football team in the city of Portland and in the State of Maine opened up their professional franchise Saturday night against another new franchise in the National Arena League, the Massachusetts Pirates. After the Mammoths took an early first quarter lead, Massachusetts pulled away from Maine 51-24 at the DCU Center in Worcester, MA in front of 5,500 fans.
Maine scored on its first play from scrimmage, and later in the first quarterback Jonathan Bane found Maurice Dupree on a 15 yard TD pass, one of three Bane TD tosses, to give the Mammoths a 12-7 lead. Massachusetts would score four of the next five touchdowns to take control 32-18 after three quarters. But a five yard TD run by Bane early in the fourth quarter cut the lead to 32-24. The Pirates answered scoring the games final 19 points, that included three Mammoth turnovers on two interceptions thrown by Bane, and a fumbled snap by the center that was recovered by Massachusetts.
Special appearances of the 5,500 in attendance included former Patriot players Derek Rivers, Deatrich Wise Jr., Patrick Pass, and Ty Law.
Maine is one of three new franchises in the NAL. The game is 8 on 8 and played on a 50 yard field. Massachusetts and the Carolina Cobras are the other newcomers to the league, which began play in 2017. The Jacksonville Sharks are the defending NAL champions.
Maine will play their first ever home game in team history next Saturday night at 7 p.m. when they welcome in the Carolina Cobras to the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland. Eastern Maine Sports will be on the coverage, and our reporter Chris Lessner will be in Portland and have the updates and recap from that contest.
Score by quarter:
ME 12 0 6 6- 24
MA 13 13 6 19- 51
