EAST BRIDGEWATER - Maybe it was the letdown from the previous week's loss to North Attleboro, or the lower-division status of the opponent, or the dim lighting, small crowd or threat of rain on an already-muddy field.

Whatever it was, the Mansfield High School football team was sleepwalking through most of the first half Friday night at East Bridgewater. The evidence was a 17-14 halftime deficit to the 2-8 Vikings.

Mansfield coach Mike Redding said he did not read his Hornets the riot act at halftime, instead telling his seniors to look at themselves in the mirror and get the message to the rest of the team about what was expected of them in the second half.

The seniors did a good job, apparently; Mansfield won the non-leaguer, 41-17, improving to 8-2 in the process.

"I told the seniors to get the guys together and decide how they wanted to play the second half," Redding said. "It was scary ... we're down three, the rain may come at any minute, you're playing on the road and you could tell we were flat. But our seniors have character." The rain held off, but the hometown Vikings probably wished it hadn't. That might have been the only thing that could slow Mansfield's running game, especially senior Shawn Doherty, who scored three of his four touchdowns in a 10-minute span to restore the natural order of things.

Doherty finished with 177 yards on 21 carries, 118 of those in the second half. He made it clear right from the start that he had taken the halftime introspection to heart, breaking a 47-yard kickoff return to the East Bridgewater 25, then bursting off right guard and cutting back left on the next play to cover that distance to the end zone. Don Washburn's kick put the Hornets back up by four (21-17), and they would never trail again.

"As fast as he is and as skilled as he is, the bottom line is that he's really a tough, tough running back," Redding said of the 5-10, 175-pound captain. "He breaks tackles, the knees keep pumping and he fights for a lot of extra yards."

Doherty's longest gains came suddenly and with game-changing force. Mansfield took over on its 34 on its next possession and Doherty broke a 49-yard gallop to the Vikings' 17 on the first play. Three carries later, he went over from the 1 and Washburn ran in a rare option pitchout for the two extra points and a 29-17 lead with 3:33 to go in the third quarter.

On the first play of the final quarter, fellow senior Matt Zonghetti (three carries, 85 yards) got free in the middle of the field and raced 46 yards for a 35-17 lead. And finally, Doherty topped a seven-play, 44-yard drive with a 1-yard burst off the left guard slot with 2:54 to go.

That was the impression the Hornets gave in the first quarter of how things were going to go. They marched 45 yards in seven plays on their first possession, leading to Doherty's 4-yard run for a 7-0 lead.

East Bridgewater struck back on the first play of the ensuing possession. Like a bolt of lightning, sophomore back Casey DeAndrade burst up the middle and outdistanced everyone on a 65-yard TD run, tying the score with 4:59 left in the quarter.

Mansfield countered with a six-play, 63-yard march capped by Zonghetti's TD sprint of 17 yards and a 14-7 lead with 2:40 left. But the Hornets' next possession went three-and-out, and East Bridgewater made the most of the last six minutes of the half.

The Vikings went 64 yards in nine plays, all on the ground, with a 22-yard sprint to the Hornet 2 by quarterback Tim O'Brien setting up a 2-yard plunge for the tying score by junior William Britton with 56 seconds left. Then, after the Vikings recovered an onside kick, O'Brien completed a pair of passes to Cory McLaughlin to get to the Mansfield 9. Two plays later, senior Kyle O'Brien booted a 24-yard field goal as time expired to send the shellshocked Hornets into intermission looking to do some soul-searching.

"I didn't think we were going to be flat," Redding said. "We had a good week of practice coming off the North game ... and East Bridgewater is better than advertised. The question with them is depth. They just get worn down." Last on the docket for the Hornets is the Thanksgiving rivalry with Foxboro at the Ahern School field, and Redding said that East Bridgewater's 174 rushing yards (Mansfield had 299) helped prepare his team for Foxboro's run-dominant offense.

"It also helped to have to play a tough 40-minute game and have a good second half," he said. "That was a good backfield ... I don't know if they're (Mike) Delaney and (Luke) Soccorso, but they had a similar offense and it was better for us to have to play a great second half than to have to sit everyone after the first."