By MIKE MATHEWS

CUMBERLAND — Mercy.

The Big Red Machine roared through the season’s final football game at Greenway Avenue Stadium, revving up for a shot at a record-tying fourth consecutive football state championship with a 49-6 victory over fourth-seeded Kent County in their Class 1A semifinal Saturday afternoon.

The top-seeded, unbeaten Sentinels (13-0) will play second-seeded Havre de Grace (10-2) in the state championship game at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis in a rematch of last year’s title game, which Fort Hill won 44-14.

Havre de Grace beat No. 3 Edmonson/Westside Friday night 34-14.

A win in the title game would tie Urbana of Frederick County for most consecutive football state championships. Urbana won four in a row (three Class 2A titles and one 3A) from 1998 to 2001.

Because Navy and Temple won their games on Saturday, the Midshipmen will host the Owls in the American Athletic Conference championship game on Saturday. That pushes the Maryland state championship games back a week, with the 1A final Saturday, Dec. 10, at 3:30 p.m.

The official championship week schedule will be posted Monday morning on the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association web site, mpssaa.org.

The Sentinels, on a chilly afternoon with dreary skies overhead, wasted no time in punching their ticket to the championship. They scored on their first four possessions, then scored on a fumble recovery and a punt return, and led 41-0 at halftime.

Five players scored. Fort Hill had 298 yards of offense, attempted no passes, had three penalties and no turnovers.

“I’m not surprised by what these guys do,’’ said Fort Hill coach Todd Appel. “They really like to play. They really like to play for Fort Hill. And I’m extremely happy with the way they play.

“They play with a lot of heart. We have some kids that are banged up, but when it comes to game time, they really put on their hard-nosed hats and really play hard.”

Kent County (7-6) had no answer for Fort Hill’s offensive firepower, and was unable to do much of anything offensively in the first half because of the Sentinels fast, swarming defense.

“Fort Hill is a great team,’’ said Kent County coach Brendon Ireton. “Defensively, they are fast. They are very, very disciplined. Their offensive line is great.

“They have some guys who are good and can play, all across the board. And they are deep. Fort Hill’s a great team. A great program. Probably one of the best in the state if not the best, and we wish them good luck next week.”

Brayden Brown ran six times for 113 yards, Brayden Poling five times for 57 and Raen Smith eight times for 45 in leading a balanced rushing attack.

The Sentinels held the Trojans to a game-opening three-and-out, and after a 25-yard punt, marched 76 yards on 12 plays on a drive that consumed 5:30.

Smith carried the ball seven times for 42 of the yards, scoring on a two-yard run with 4:50 left in the quarter.

The other touchdowns came much quicker, and with a bit more flare.

Poling fielded a Kent punt on a hop a few minutes later and raced 54 yards down the Fort Hill sideline before being pulled down at the five-yard line. On the next play, Nathaniel Graves scored to make it 13-0 with 42 seconds on the clock.

Speedy Kent County quarterback Marcquan Greene (21 carries, 128 yards) broke free on a 39-yard run to get the Trojans to the Fort Hill 15, with Markel Spencer and Brown teaming for a touchdown-saving tackle.

The defense did its job from there, with Poling and Luke Hamilton stopping Arlington Johnson for a two-yard loss and, after an incompletion, Brayden Conley and Hamilton sacked Greene for a three-yard loss before Austin Martin stopped Greene on a short gain on fourth down.

From that point, it was all Fort Hill.

Poling ran for 39 yards, Brown ran for 20 more and, after a personal foul, Graves scored on a 24-yard run as the Sentinels went 83 yards on only three plays to make it 21-0 at the 9:21 mark of the second quarter.

Another Martin tackle of Green on fourth down gave Fort Hill the ball back and this time the offense went 60 yards on four plays with Brown cutting inside of a nice block by Holden Sibley and speeding 44 yards for the score.

Two plays later, Greene, on a hard hit at the line of scrimmage, coughed up the ball almost on a platter to Noah Steckman, who grabbed it in midair and ran 23 yards for a third touchdown in a span of 4:10 that made it 33-0 with 5:11 until halftime.

The special teams got into the act a few minutes later when Markel Spencer fielded a punt at the 48 and raced across the field and down the right sideline untouched for a TD that made it 41-0 at the 2:33 mark.

Appel said there was a clear message at halftime.

“We talked about some things. One was to make sure you don’t get involved in any controversy,’’ he said. “And play hard.

“We wanted to make sure we fielded their onside kick (to open the half) because we knew it’s coming. Let’s play hard and go on to next week.”

The onside kick rolled out of bounds at the Fort Hill 38, and four plays later the Sentinels were in the end zone again.

Troy Banks ran 29 yards on first down, and Brown broke off a 25-yarder to the Kent County eight-yard line. Poling ran six yards to the two, and scored from there on the next play to make it 49-0.

The 35-point running clock mercy rule made for a quick second half, and Kent averted the shutout when Greene hit Dashawn Lister on a 38-yard pass with just over a minute left. The clock expired before a conversion could be attempted.

FROM STAFF REPORTS

The Kent County Trojans turned their backs on Fort Hill as the Sentinels came down the 52 steps to Greenway Avenue Stadium Saturday afternoon.

But while they can truthfully say they didn’t see them coming, they can’t say they didn’t see what hit them the next two hours.

What the Sentinels did once again was let their play on the field do the talking. Or, in this case, the tweeting.

“They talked early … on Twitter and social media,” said Fort Hill quarterback and safety Nathaniel Graves, who scored two touchdowns. “We knew to stay off it, because we just had to do it on the field within the whistles.

“It was actually a big motivation for us because it just fired us all up and encouraged us to go out there and do better than we always have.”

That’s an awfully tall order. But with the help of a few tweeting Trojans, the Sentinels did just that.

The Sentinels scored on long drives, like the 76-yard, 12-play possession that took 5:30, and the 83-yard, three-play drive that took 45 seconds.

They scored on short runs (two-yarders by Raen Smith and Brayden Poling) and on long runs (a 44-yarder by Brayden Brown and a 24-yarder by Graves). They scored on a 48-yard punt return by Markel Spencer, had another set up by a 54-yard punt return by Poling, and scored on a 23-yard fumble return by Noah Steckman.

The Sentinels scored on offense, defense and special teams. Meanwhile, the defense made 14 tackles behind the line of scrimmage.

Tweet or no tweet, Kent County didn’t stand a chance.

The Fort Hill offense ran two — count ‘em, two — third-down plays. The first was a seven-yard run by Graves on a third-and-2 midway through the second quarter. The other was two-yard run by Logan Johnson on a third-and-eight late in the fourth.

“We just came out and did what we had to do today,’’ said Poling, who ran five times for 57 yards in addition to the 54-yard punt return and was part of Fort Hill’s gang of tacklers that kept Kent’s dangerously athletic Marcquan Greene (21 carries, 128 yards) in check most of the day.

“They were talking on Twitter and everything. That got us more fired up. We just wanted to come out here and show them who we really are.”

Greene had a 39-yard run in the first quarter, but ran eight times for one yard during the second quarter when Fort Hill scored 28 points in less than a seven-minute span. The other three Kent County ballcarriers combined for 18 yards on 21 carries.

One thing the Trojans did rather well was return kickoffs, and they got plenty of work, returning seven in the first half alone. Takai Caulk had a 48-yarder and Greene a 28-yarder.

But on offense the Trojans couldn’t move the chains, getting only three first downs before halftime.

“I felt like we had some good returns, but they definitely capitalized on defense,’’ said Kent County coach Brendon Ireton. “They had it all covered. We knew coming in we had to play a perfect game. We just weren’t able to do it today.”

And the tweeting?

“You know what, if that’s going to give you extra motivation … I don’t know, you’ve got to be ready to play,’’ Ireton said. “So it’s not like kids are kids, and kids are going to say stuff. It is what it is, but you shouldn’t have to have that to get up to play in a state semifinal game.”

Fort Hill didn’t need it, as its 24-game winning streak suggests. But it’s difficult to have watched the game and not thought they had a little extra on their minds from the get-go.

One of the big things on the mind of Fort Hill coach Todd Appel was Greene.

“The biggest part of this game was stopping No. 1 (Greene). We knew if we held him in check we had a great chance to win,” he said. “We worked awfully hard this week on stopping the option, and especially him.

“A lot of times you put one guy on the quarterback. We put three on him. We wanted to make sure he was going to pitch the ball, and we were going to run backside and tackle him. He’s a special player.”

It was gang tackling for the most part for Fort Hill, which did an especially good job on the edges. Of the 11 first-half tackles for loss, Brayden Conley had three, including two sacks, Luke Hamilton had two and Graves 1 1/2.

The only thing that appeared to move quicker than the Fort Hill defense was the second-half clock, which ran continuously because of the 35-point mercy rule.

“You have to be prepared for everything,” Appel said. “We have a good defense as far as team speed goes. We do run to the ball very well.”

Whenever the Sentinels do play again, it will be in a stadium that is used to hearing the tune of the Fort Hill fight song. They call it Anchors Aweigh at Navy-Marine Corps Stadium, and if it’s heard a lot in Annapolis that day, it will mean only one thing: another Fort Hill win.

“It’s always exciting, to come out here and win,’’ said Poling.

“It doesn’t get old,” said Graves, a senior. “I love it, and I’m going to miss it when it’s done.”