CAMBRIDGE SPRINGS — Zach Stafford and Colton Noble both rushed for over 100 yards and the Cambridge Springs football team snapped its four-game losing streak with a 21-0 homecoming victory over PENNCREST rival Maplewood Friday night at Baird Field.

“We finally played better,” said Cambridge head coach Clint Rauscher. “It’s something to grow on. We’ve had a lot of things this season that were positive. We just need to keep rolling in that direction. Hopefully we can grow and keep getting better these next couple weeks and finish real strong.”

The win improves the Blue Devils’ record to 3-5 overall and 2-4 in Region 2. And add their 19-0 win over Saegertown in Week 1, and that makes Cambridge the unofficial PENNCREST champ for the season.

Maplewood, meanwhile, drops its fourth straight and slips to 1-7 overall and 1-5 in the region.

“Two weeks in a row, same thing, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot,” said Tigers head coach Bryan Borkovich. Last week the Tigers were tripped up by formerly-winless Saegertown 26-7.

“We’re kind of going in reverse,” he added. “I don’t know why. It’s something we’ve got to keep working on.”

While Stafford and Noble provided the highlights for Cambridge Springs’ offense; the Blue Devils ‘D’ is really what stole the show.

Cambridge held Maplewood to just 71 yards of offense on the night. The Tigers ran just 36 plays on 10 possessions. Seven of those possessions lasted three plays or less, and an eighth lasted just four plays before the Tigers had to punt it away.

“Much better effort on defense,” said Rauscher. “We’re finding the right guys and putting them in the right places. And now things are starting to fit. ... I thought we had a really good scheme. The key was discipline. Our ends had the quarterback. So if he pulled, they shut him down. Our linebackers had the running backs. And our line, I thought, physically handled the line of scrimmage.”

The hard-nosed effort by Cambridge Springs’ defense kept the offense on the field. And that meant big games for the Devils’ top two running backs.

Stafford, a freshman, finished the game with 136 yards on 18 carries. He scored the Blue Devils’ first two touchdowns, both in the first quarter.

On the Spa’s second possession, the Devils went 66 yards on 10 plays. And Stafford got the team on the scoreboard with a 13-yard run.

Then on the Devils’ next series, Stafford broke away for a 30-yard touchdown run, ending a five-play, 53-yard series.

Both touchdown runs began with a fake hand-off to Noble up the middle, followed by the exchange to Stafford, who was off to the races through the opposite side of the line.

“Colton Noble just has a great fake, so you don’t know who has the ball,” said Stafford. “One time our own QB thought (Noble) had the ball even though he didn’t hand it off.”

According to Rauscher, “We shifted a little bit offensively to try to get into more of a belly series. We moved Zach into the main running spot. ... We want to kind of feature him, led by Colton. It’s kind of a potent one-two punch there, which we found last week against LeBoeuf. So we changed it a little bit.”

Cambridge put the final points on the board with 2:47 left in the second half. It came after a 12-play, 63-yard possession that ate nearly seven minutes off the game clock.

This time it was Noble getting the hand-off. He punched it in from one yard out.

The junior would go on to rush for 102 yards on 19 carries.

As a unit, Cambridge gained 282 yards on 48 carries.

“The linemen blocked, the running backs ran hard,” said Stafford. “We trusted in each other and executed.”

Neither team would score in the second half.

Maplewood had a chance late in the fourth, working the ball all the way down to the 5 yard line before coughing it up for the third time in the game.

“We’re making strides, but we’ve just got to execute,” said Borkovich. “I know it’s new, but we’re eight weeks in. So, there’s really no excuses.

“We’ll get there, though. I know we will.”