Waterford — Generally, talent wins out.

Talent won out in the case of the Norwich Free Academy football team on Friday night but, man, did the Wildcats ever make it tough for themselves at times.

NFA escaped Waterford with a 20-13 win in its season debut, looking every bit like a team that didn’t have the opportunity to practice game situations against opponents. The Wildcats made too many careless mistakes, namely seven penalties and two turnovers. ... and coach Jemal Davis had to waste two timeouts on his team's first drive to get the offense organized.

It was what Davis expected, though.

“Absolutely,” he said. “With the (new CIAC) regulations, because we did spring ball, we could only have one scrimmage. Our one scrimmage was against Hall, and Hall had played the previous week, so they only wanted to go a half. So, in terms of live action, our ones had only a half. That’s it. Previous years, we had three scrimmages.

“(The team) knew the plays, but the tempo of the game and the fatigue that sets in leading to mental errors is what we had.”

Jawaun Johnson ran 27 times for 211 yards and three touchdowns for NFA and recovered a Waterford fumble at the Wildcats’ 1-yard line early in the fourth quarter.

“We just didn’t have enough intensity (in the first half),” Johnson said. “We couldn’t get our stuff together. ... We went into the locker room and came out all fired up. Everyone on the team had faith in each other and played our game.”

It was another tough loss for Waterford (0-2). It lost Week 1, 20-14, when Windham scored on an 86-yard touchdown pass with 16.7 seconds remaining.

“Like I told the kids, we’re playing real hard and we’re playing real well,” first-year Lancers coach John Strecker said. “We have to stop making mistakes. We’ve got to finish the game.”

One of those mistakes came back to haunt Waterford. It had first-and-10 at its own 31 with 3 minutes, 29 seconds left in the third quarter when it was flagged for a block below the waist. The penalty moved the ball back to its 16.

Waterford got no further than its own 19 and was forced to punt, and NFA senior co-captain Griffen Gooden returned it to the Lancers’ 39.

Johnson ran on the Wildcats’ next three plays. The last was for a 9-yard touchdown to put NFA ahead, 14-13, with 43.9 seconds left in the quarter.

Waterford gave itself a chance to go ahead when Michael Rocchetti returned the ensuing kickoff 65 yards to the Wildcats’ 23. The Lancers got to the NFA goal line when they fumbled the ball on the exchange. Johnson recovered at the 1.

“We tried to take advantage of some no-huddle,” Strecker said. “We were trying to push it in the end zone. I thought about kicking a field goal, but as it turns out, it wouldn’t have done us any good anyways.”

Johnson tacked on a 63-yard touchdown run with 4:14 left to push the Wildcats’ lead to 20-13.

Spencer Hoagland kicked field goals of 43 and 36 yards in the first half for Waterford. Chase Speller ran 18 times for 86 yards and Jake Mangual completed 10 of 20 passes for 79 yards with an interception and scored on a 1-yard run.

“The kids showed some resiliency,” Davis said. “I’m very proud of them. We were able to get a win. They scored after (Waterford took the lead), and that’s what we need —to be able to come back and fight.”

n.griffen@theday.clom

Twitter: @MetalNED