SOUTH YARMOUTH – Lessons are learned in losses, but you can find some light at the end of the tunnel when you sneak away with a win as well.

Barnstable looked strong early on and scrapped its way to a 14-12 road victory over Dennis-Yarmouth (3-2, 0-1) with both Red Hawks’ scores coming in the first quarter in the first Cape & Island League game for both squads.

With the win, head coach Ross Jatkola’s team remained unbeaten on the season at 5-0 but the Dolphins didn’t make it easy.

“We have to pay way more attention to detail on both sides of the ball but hats off to DY, they are an unbelievable football team and Jayden Barber is unbelievable,” said Jatkola. “(The Dolphins) were ready to play tonight and made it a really good football game. We have to do a better job executing.”

After a quick three-and-out for the Red Hawks, Dennis Yarmouth put the first points on the board as Barber finished off their opening seven-play drive with a four-yard quarterback draw for the 6-0 lead.

But as Jatkola mentioned execution, his quarterback Dylan Hamilton hit Kayden Fortes in stride with an 81-yard hitch-and-go and after the Hagen Dias extra point, Barnstable held the 7-6 lead with 6:31 left in the first quarter.

“It’s our little bubble-and-go play, I love that play, and it’s one of my favorites in the playbook,” said Hamilton. “We executed it perfectly and Kayden took it all the way down.”

Dennis-Yarmouth decided to go for it on a fourth-and-four from its own 26-yard line and the Barnstable defense stopped a curl route just short of the 30 and the Red Hawks capitalized.

Jayson Dyer finished off the four-play drive with a six-yard touchdown run aided by a pass interference call that placed the ball inside the red zone at the Dolphins’ 14-yard line.

Hamilton’s pinpoint passing set up Dyer’s score and followed by the successful extra-point – the Red Hawks had the lead for good, 14-6.

“You can’t measure the size of heart and ever since I’ve known the kid, he’s tough as nails, he does everything the right way and he works hard,” said Jatkola about his 5-foot-8 junior quarterback, Hamilton. “He’s really worked on his arm strength and accuracy all offseason. We believe in him; we are going to keep believing in him and he keeps proving us right.”

But Dennis-Yarmouth gave out swinging in the second half as Barber returned the opening kickoff 85 yards to set up a 10-yard touchdown pass to Brayden Campbell and the Dolphins were right there, but the two-point conversion pass failed and the scoring stalled, 14-12 the rest of the way.

Already riddled with injuries to front-line players like seniors Peyton Kellett and Walter Mayo, the Dolphins had a scare midway through the second half as Barber had to leave the field for a series but finished 17-of-33 for 225 yards on one leg down the stretch.

“The guys that were on the field played so hard and I’m super proud of the effort. The guys on defense played as hard as they could and a couple of plays going the other way and we had a shot, but it just didn’t work out,” said Dolphins head coach Chris Marsh. “We were right there, we did a lot of good things, we have to keep building on those, just be a little more consistent.”

Dennis-Yarmouth had four drives of 12 plays or more but had nothing to show for any of the long series despite dominating the time of possession throughout the game.