EASTON - Attention, Tri-Valley League! This is your fair warning not to overlook the Norton High School football team this year. Do so at your own peril.

That message was delivered in the second straight win for Robb McCoy's Lancers, a 35-6 demolition of Oliver Ames of the Hockomock League in a no-contest non-leaguer played Saturday at Southeastern Regional's Houlker Memorial Field.

This game was simply all Lancers, all the time.

Junior quarterback Brendan St. Germain completed 10 of 13 passes for 233 yards, with two touchdowns and no interceptions, for a gaudy 157.9 passer rating as figured by the NFL method.

He was ably aided by senior running back Sean Ryan, who carried 16 times for 85 yards, caught one 49-yard pass, scored four touchdowns and had an 89-yard gallop for a score negated by an illegal block. Senior wide receiver Darren Doucette pulled in three catches for 112 yards, and the Lancer defense sacked OA quarterback Stephan Lockwood five times for 36 yards in losses, intercepted him three times and limited the Tigers' ground attack out of the spread offense to just 47 yards. No one was happier to see the poise in the Lancers, who had a 455-178 advantage in total yards, than their young coach.

"Last week, Sean had a great game in the mud and the rain (against Masconomet), and he's a great runner, a great player," McCoy said. "You saw it on that pass play at the end of the half. You just never know with him. He gets the ball in his hands and you just don't know what he's going to do."

The play to which McCoy was referring came with a first down at the OA 49 with six seconds left in the first half. St. Germain rolled right and threw to Ryan along the sideline, expecting him to get out of bounds, or perhaps to be content to take a 21-0 lead into the lockers. But as he was swarmed by Tiger defenders, Ryan somehow spun away from them and broke free for the remaining 30 yards to the end zone to the utter amazement of everyone in attendance.

Ricky Travers added one of his five PAT kicks with no time showing on the clock, and if there was any life left in Jim Artz's Tigers, who were making their season debut, it departed at that point.

The Tigers, homeless this year because of construction to their own stadium, had their season opener with Holliston canceled because of the tragic death of a player from that town in the final preseason scrimmage. But nothing could have prepared them for the sheer power of the Norton rushing and passing attacks, and the dominance of the line of scrimmage that made most of it happen.

Advantageous field position, created by capitalizing upon OA's mistakes, enabled Norton to build the big first-half lead. Lockwood's first pass was picked off by Brendan Curtin and returned to the OA 44, and on the third play, a terrific seal-off block by Phil Rizzo sprung Ryan for a 28-yard TD run on a pitchout.

The combination of an 11-yard sack of Lockwood by Doucette and a 5-yard punt put Norton in business again at the OA 24. St. Germain fired to Brian Desmond for 20 yards to set up Ryan's second score, a 5-yard counter for a 14-0 lead with 4:47 left in the opening quarter.

"St. Germain has come a long way from last year," McCoy said. "Last week we didn't get the chance to throw the ball as much as we would have liked to, but we said to him that this was going to be his coming-out party, and it was."

Desmond's interception with three minutes left in the half was immediately followed by a 37-yard gallop by junior Steve Gilmore, setting up Ryan's 2-yard blast for a 21-0 lead with 2:28 left. Then on the final possession, St. Germain found Doucette for 13 yards and scampered for 15 on third-and-11 to get to midfield and make Ryan's long TD catch possible.

The lone bright spot for OA was the play of senior wide receiver Kyle Steadmen (eight catches, 155 yards), who put the Tigers on the board with a 73-yard sprint to the end zone on a throw from Lockwood with 5:43 left in the third quarter. But even that joy was short-lived. Ryan broke his 89-yard run on the first play of the next Norton possession, only to have it wiped off the books. But three plays later from the 12, St. Germain found Doucette all alone on the right side and no one could catch up, completing an 88-yard scoring play with 4:12 to go.

Tyler Nordbeck added the third interception of Lockwood (10-17-3, 170 yards, one TD) at the 1:49 mark, signaling the beginning of junior varsity time. Doucette had two of the sacks, Ricky Robichaud and Josh Archer accounted for two more, and Robichaud and Grover Welch shared the fifth.

"We were very disciplined on defense," McCoy said. "And that's what we harp on. We see the 'spread' a lot, so we're defending it all the time in practice. We try to eliminate the big play, and if you try to make a team dink and dunk, throw the little things, not everybody has a Tom Brady or a Joe Montana on their teams that can complete those short balls all the time."

Now 2-0, the Lancers' first TVL test comes Friday night at Ashland.