NORTH ADAMS — Sixteen seconds into Saturday’s Intercounty West football showdown, there were all smiles on the McCann Technical High School bench.

Running an opening kickoff back for a touchdown will do that.

Fortunately for the players and coaches on the Mohawk Trail Regional High School sideline, those smiles were gone 15 seconds later.

Just after Dakota Bolte returned the opening kickoff 85 yards for a score, Mohawk’s Alex Shippee ran the ensuing kickoff back 65 yards for the go-ahead score, and the Warriors never looked back in a 38-21 win.

“It was the first play,” said Mohawk coach Doug McCloud. “It doesn’t matter. Then we did it, too. So we came right back with one.”

Once Shippee scored on the kickoff return, it became a very long afternoon for the Hornets (1-4, 0-2 IL West), who were outgained 292 yards to 209. But the Warriors (3-2, 2-1) ran the ball 55 times and had 56 offensive plays to just 37 or the Hornets.

“I take the opening kickoff back and everybody’s happy and hyped. The next thing you know, they do it. They return the favor,” Bolte said. “That’s almost like a ‘DK,’ drive killer. Your heart goes from filled with happiness to, ‘Wow, this just got real.’

“It really takes a lot out of you.”

Jonny Herbert ran the ball on 22 of Mohawk’s 55 carries for 151 yards and three touchdowns. He scored on runs of 44 and 9 yards in the second quarter, and put an exclamation point on the win with a 19-yard fourth-quarter touchdown run. The 44-yard scamper was the longest run from scrimmage by a Warrior back in the game.

“We have been playing against it for years. They execute it very well,” McCann coach Bob LeClair said of the Double Wing. “It grinds you and grinds you. The little guy finds a hole and there it goes.”

McCloud had praise for his team, up and down the roster: “I tell you what, I hand it to my line today. They did an outstanding job. Our kids, our backs found the slightest hole and took advantage of it. It was a great team effort. I’m proud of all of them.”

Mohawk went up two scores when Warriors cornerback Ryan Walker picked off a pass by McCann sophomore quarterback Justin Meczywor at the Hornet 18-yard line. Three plays later, Shippee made it 14-7 on a 6-yard run. The two-point conversion, good on the first touchdown, failed.

Both teams settled into a bit of a defensive struggle until Bolte shanked a punt that traveled 5 yards and gave Mohawk a first down on the McCann 47. Two plays later, Herbert took a pitch from quarterback Kamron Hoff, cut up the middle and outsprinted the Hornet defense to the end zone for a 44-yard touchdown run.

Herbert’s 9-yard TD run with 1:37 left made it 26-7, and the day was done. Not so fast, because on the next series, Bolte ran a post pattern, Meczywor hit him in stride, and it was a 44-yard touchdown for McCann.

Any hopes the Hornets harbored of being close at halftime were dashed when Shippee took the next kickoff 85 yards for a back-breaking touchdown.

“They’re decimated with injuries and stuff,” McCloud said of McCann. “We just played hard today. We took care of the ball. We didn’t fumble the ball. We were blocking and we were getting positive yards on almost every play.”

Mohawk hosts Mount Greylock Regional High School Friday at 7 p.m. at Pollard Field in Buckland.