When I saw Starmount in the first week of the season against MA, they played their butts off. Mount Airy won 28-7, but that was just on manpower. Coach Holder was upset at his own team and had more positive things to say about the Rams than he did the Bears; he acknowledged they played tougher, and I would add, like Deana said, that they were fundamentally sound.
Generally speaking, if a team plays hard and plays smart for 48 minutes, good things will start to happen for them. MA just had athletes on offense that Starmount couldn't match up to. But you don't see the likes of Donavon Greene in 1A football every week. He had one touchdown where he was defended perfectly, but he's 6'3" and can dunk a basketball, and he just out-jumped the other guy.