LISBON FALLS — Sub-freezing temperature. Saturated earth thinly disguised as a football field. A goal-line stand. An end zone-to-end zone drive in less time than it would take to eat two concession-stand hot dogs.

The captive audience of Lisbon High School football backers, not to mention the coaches and players, were asking themselves one obvious question: Haven’t we been here before?

For them, in many ways, the sequence that punctuated the first half of Saturday’s 28-14 Western Class C championship victory over Boothbay eerily, frighteningly, yet happily resembled the cardiac-challenging conclusion of the 1997 state final with Foxcroft.

Sure, that six-year-old sequence unfolded at the end of the day on a neutral field, and yes, there was a state title in the balance. If this year’s Greyhounds wrap their paws around a Gold Ball one week from now, however, they’ll look back to the three-minute sequence in which they stuffed four consecutive Boothbay runs and calmly covered the distance to the opposite end zone as the event that defined their season.

Parallels were being drawn even before Mitch Harmon’s improbable touchdown catch from Chris Kates tied the game at the halftime horn.

“I wasn’t at that game,” said senior blocking back and linebacker Derek Roy, “but I’ve seen the tape a hundred times.”

Faced with first-and-goal for Boothbay at the Greyhound 5, someone in Lisbon’s huddle gazed underneath the nearby goalpost and saw a member of the ’97 squad wearing his championship jacket.

It was duly noted before Kates and Carl Grady collaborated to stuff Jon Farrin for a one-yard loss. Repeated prior to Grady, Roy and Randy Chaolux’s gang-tackling of D.J. Holcomb after a modest gain. Talked about with feeling in the moments leading up to the Harmons, Mitch and Nick, snuffing out Justin Wood on a counter criss-cross.

By the time Grady wrestled Farrin out-of-bounds on an option play that didn’t make it past the 2, several Greyhounds were ready to turn in their jacket size.

“Oh, yeah. When you make a defensive stop like that,” said junior lineman Jacob Sprinkle, “nothing’s gonna stop you.”

John Tefft trailed the right side of his offensive line for 15 yards. Tony Walker dragged tacklers for 17 and 14 more. That moved the Greyhounds to midfield with just over a minute left, which was time enough to run eight more plays and convert two fourth downs.

Kates had a hand, not his mention his feet and brain, in both. On fourth-and-2 from the 42, he gained seven on a quarterback draw. Pass interference on the next play moved the ball to the 20, but three consecutive underthrown passes seemed to halt the likelihood of history repeating itself with 7.8 seconds left.

Which was enough time, mind you, for Kates to drop back, witness a sea of white, blue and gold shirts, roll to his right and consciously look down at the ground to make sure his foot was on the legal side of the line of scrimmage. The six-foot, 185-pound senior threw off the wrong foot, across his body to the goal line, where Mitch Harmon and Tefft stood among the aforementioned gaggle of Seahawks.

“That was the luckiest pass I’ve thrown in my entire life,” Kates said.

Lucky because Harmon came down with the ball and arched his body across the stripe for the only touchdown of his senior season to date. Luckier because referee Scott Foyt, who had an eye on Kates’ feet, convened with a partner who dropped a flag. The first official rightfully corrected his call, waving off a penalty for an illegal forward pass.

Unlike the first installment of the Miracle on Mud, there was more work to be done.

That was no problem. Energized beyond description, Lisbon scored two of the first three times it touched the football in the second half.

[email protected]