It’s a safe bet that any time folks from Lisbon and Boothbay get together on a Friday night or Saturday afternoon, it’s for a big football game.

Last year, the Greyhounds and Seahawks met in two of the most important games in the Campbell Conference. The first decided first place and, ultimately, home field advantage for the playoffs. The second decided the Western Class C championship. Lisbon came out on top both times.

This Saturday, the rivals will butt heads again, and even though neither is in first place, there will still be a lot on the line.

Boothbay (2-2) is coming off rare back-to-back home losses to Jay and Livermore Falls, and hasn’t been .500 this late into the season in a long time. If the playoffs started today, they’d be on the outside looking in, so the Seahawks will be hungry.

The Greyhounds should be just as hungry for several reasons. First, with a win, they’ll be able to put two games in the standings between themselves and the Seahawks. Second, their head coach, Dick Mynahan, sees this as an important stepping stone for his team.

“We were a young team starting off, but we’ll be five games into our schedule. We’re not young any longer,” he said. “Boothbay is still a physical team. They’re going to get (senior running back) Jake Hodgdon back. It’s going to be quite a challenge for us to take on a team like that.”

The Greyhounds are tied with Winthrop, and a game behind undefeated Jay and Livermore Falls in the Western C standings. They’ve already lost to Jay and face the Andies in two weeks. Their season finale is against the Ramblers and could be crucial to playoff positioning, depending on how both teams do in the next three weeks.

“We’re getting to the point in the season where we’re able to control our destiny a little bit more,” Mynahan said.

Rambler recovery

Winthrop is another Campbell Conference team facing a big test this week. The Ramblers host Jay, which boasts the No. 1 scoring offense and defense in the league.

First-year coach Joel Stoneton’s team is the surprise of the year so far, following a 1-8 campaign with a 3-1 start.

“We set some easy goals early and we met those and we’re just trying to continue on,” Stoneton said.

The first “easy” goal was matching last year’s win total. A win in Week 2 over Madison did that, breaking Winthrop’s seven-game losing streak. The next goal was to go beyond last year’s win total. Bolstered by the return of five starters, including two-way stalwarts Bruce Brooks and Jake Clark, the Ramblers collected victories over Cape Elizabeth and Traip.

Now the Ramblers are in the thick of the playoff hunt, but Stoneton doesn’t think his team will get ahead of itself.

“We’ve had some success against weaker teams but Jay is a big test,” he said. “In the back of our mind, we’re always thinking about making the playoffs, but the group that we’ve got is pretty focused and we realize that we have to take it one week at a time.”

Cougar trap

Mt. Blue coach Gary Parlin warned his players against allowing tonight’s contest at 2-2 Cony to become a trap game. To illustrate his point, he went back to when most of them were in middle school.

“We showed them the film of the 2000 game,” he said. “We were just coming off a big win here (at home) against Gardiner and they had lost. We were pretty high on ourselves and went down there and turned it over seven times and lost to them, 12-0.”

Warning flags the Cougars overlooking the Rams went up earlier this week after some lackluster practices. The Cougars are coming off their biggest win of the season, a 27-0 shutout of previously unbeaten Messalonskee, and host Lewiston next week before finishing the season with rival Skowhegan.

After a good practice Thursday, though, Parlin thinks his team will be ready.

“I’ll be shocked if these guys let it be a trap game because it’s not a real rah-rah group,” he said. “They don’t get too high and they don’t get too low.”