It’s been a long time since Kentwood has beaten Auburn on its home turf at Auburn Memorial Stadium.

In fact, Conquerors coach Rex Norris couldn’t even remember the last time.

“I don’t think we’ve won here in 10 years,” he said. “Actually, I’m pretty sure I’ve never beat them here.”

On Friday night, however, Kentwood (3-1 South Puget Sound League North 4A, 4-1 overall) was able to control the fourth-quarter clock and hand the Trojans (2-3, 2-3) a 24-17 loss, their third in a row.

After Auburn scored on a Darnell Hagans’ 5-yard run with 7:14 left on the clock ­– bringing the Trojans to within a TD of Kentwood – the Conquerors took over on their own 21-yard line and put together a time-consuming, 15-play drive to close out the game

“Our kids responded,” Norris said. “We’re getting a lot from them right now.”

Auburn opened the scoring in the first quarter when kicker Axel Barajas’ field goal dribbled over the crossbar after a Conk defender got a hand on it.

Kentwood responded with Chance Kalua-Fuimaono’s 13-yard TD run with 44 seconds left in the first quarter. After a missed extra-point attempt, the Conks led 6-3.

Kentwood stretched its lead to 9-3 on Mitchell Cox’s 33-yard field goal in the second quarter.

On its next drive, Auburn capped a 10-play, two-minute drive with a 10-yard TD reception, taking a 10-9 lead into halftime.

In the second half, the Conks opened with an eight play, 80-yard drive culminating in Matt Hubbard’s 2-yard scoring run.

Kentwood padded its lead in the fourth quarter behind senior Visa Thach’s 1-yard TD run. The Conquerors converted the two-point play, putting the score at 24-10.

Auburn pulled within a touchdown on Hagans’ fourth-quarter TD run, but was unable to stop Kentwood in the final minutes of the fourth quarter.

“We just didn’t play well enough to win,” Auburn coach Gordon Elliott said. “We just need to get better. We needed to stop them and we didn’t. I thought we moved the ball well and found some things we could do. We just didn’t stop them.”

“It’s gratifying to come in here and get a win. That’s a coach (Elliott) over there who doesn’t lose often,” Norris said.

The Conks’ Hubbard agreed that the win on Auburn’s home turf was a big boost for Kentwood, which plays undefeated Kentlake (5-0, 5-0) at 7 p.m. next Friday at French Field.

“They were here to defend their house, but our mentality is that wherever we go, we make it our house,” Hubbard said. “And I think we made it our house tonight. We proved tonight for every team that has doubted us that we’re here to play and we’re not going to back down to anyone.”

For the Trojans, it’s back to the practice field this week to work on getting better before they host Curtis (2-3, 2-3) of the SPSL South 4A at 7 p.m. next Friday.

“The only thing we have to do is get better,” Elliott said. “I thought we played better tonight than we did last week. All we have control over is us getting better, and not focusing on other teams and other years. And hopefully we can do that.”