LISBON FALLS – Turnovers can always be the turning point of a football game, but usually it’s not just about how many turnovers you force, but what you make of them.

Study the contrast between the first and second halves of Saturday’s Campbell Conference season finale between Winthrop and Lisbon. Lisbon didn’t make Winthrop pay for its two first-half turnovers, but Winthrop made Lisbon pay for its two fumbles and took a 16-15 lead into halftime.

The Greyhounds eliminated their mistakes in the second half. The Ramblers did not, and the result was 14 unanswered points that gave Lisbon a 30-16 win at a damp Thompson Field.

Levi Ervin rushed for 104 yards, caught five passes for 56 yards and two touchdowns, recovered a fumble and collected two interceptions to lead the Greyhounds, who finish the season 7-2.

As the third seed in Western Class C, they will travel to No. 2 Livermore Falls next week for the Western C quarterfinals.

The Ramblers, coming off a 1-8 season last year, finished 4-5.

“You can’t come here against a team that executes so well and turn the ball over,” said Winthrop coach Joel Stoneton. “We did a really good job playing with them in the first half and making them turn the ball over and then we came back and did the same thing and let them back in the game. We have a really hard time bouncing back from turnovers.”

Part of the reason they had a hard time bouncing back was Lisbon chewed up a lot of time on offense. The Greyhounds ran 77 plays on offense compared to Winthrop’s 29. The Greyhounds outgained the Ramblers, 298-69, on the day.

“We always like to eat up the clock with time-consuming drives,” said Ervin. “That’s our type of football.”

Lisbon started playing its type of football on the game’s opening drive, marching 56 yards 13 plays for the first score when Chris Kates (11-for-17, 112 yards, two TDs) found Ervin in the left flat. Ervin then broke a tackle at the 10 and dove for the left pylon which, after Maxx Hathaway’s extra point, gave the Greyhounds a 7-0 lead.

Dan Willis recorded the first of four Lisbon interceptions on the Ramblers’ ensuing drive, but that’s when Winthrop’s defense started to get pesky. Tavis Hasenfus scooped up an Ervin fumble near his own 45 and raced 50 yards down the left sideline to the Lisbon four. Hasenfus pounded it in from the one two plays later, then added the two-point conversion for an 8-7 Winthrop lead.

Another Lisbon interception, this one by Kates, only led to more disaster for the Greyhounds. Lisbon drove down to the Winthrop 30 when Kates rolled out right to pass under heavy pressure from Bruce Brooks.

Brooks nailed Kates just as he lifted the ball to pass, jarring it loose from the Lisbon quarterback before his arm went forward.

David Paleschi caught the ball out of midair and carried it 65 yards for the touchdown which, followed by a Travis Frautten two-point pass to Chip Burnham, put the Ramblers up 16-7.

“Levi made a great run and put the ball on the ground. Chris scrambled and tried to make a big play for us. Both turnovers came on aggressive offensive plays,” said Lisbon coach Dick Mynahan. “I’ll take that any day. Those are the mistakes you make when you play hard-nosed football.”

Lisbon pulled to within a point before halftime on a two-yard TD run by Jacob Sprinkle and a two-point conversion from Kates to Ervin.

The Greyhounds quickly shifted the tide of turnovers in the second half. On Winthrop’s first possession, Hathaway chased Frautten down from behind as the QB rolled out left to pass and stripped him of the football. Lisbon recovered at Winthrop’s 37, then scored 10 plays later on a two-yard run by Kates.

Ervin recovered a Winthrop fumble on the first play of Winthrop’s next series to set up a 14-play, 56 yard scoring drive capped by Ervin’s 3-yard pass reception from Kates that made it 30-16 early in the fourth.

Winthrop tried to change its luck with a little trickery on its next possession, calling a halfback option pass by Hasenfus, but Ervin was there to pick off the deep pass at his own 36.

“I saw the offensive line stand up and I knew it was a halfback pass the whole way,” Ervin said.