By Kalle Oakes,Staff Writer

LISBON FALLS – It’s easy to overlook Nick Adams in his black Lisbon High School football jersey. For one thing, he’s 5-foot-9 with the helmet on; 155 pounds when he’s decked out in full pads and standing in a driving rain.

Missing the senior wide receiver and cornerback is even more understandable this autumn. Adams hasn’t amassed 1,500 yards and averaged two to three touchdowns a game like Levi Ervin, and it would take almost two Adams armed with one giant shoebox full of NCAA Division I recruiting letters to equal one, 280-pound Elijah Trefts.

When you start talking about a defense that hasn’t allowed a point in four games, however, and achieved six of its 10 victories by shutting out its Western Class C opposition, the lost is found.

Adams is a stopper in the secondary and a leader in the huddle. When the Greyhounds have the ball, he’s frequently delivering the final block to set Ervin or Dan Willis free. If quarterback Chris Brunick needs Adams to run a slant and make a tough, third-down grab, he can do that, too.

“Whenever we come into a season, we always look at our seniors, and we really feel like if we’re going to be better than people expect, a senior has to step up,” said Lisbon coach Dick Mynahan. “We knew some seniors were going to be really good for us. Nick is the one player on our team who we feel really stepped up.”

Ervin and Trefts are once-in-a-lifetime players who have blessed Mynahan by living in the same community and being the same age.

Adams is more typical of the unsung heroes who have blossomed under the coach’s tutelage for two decades. Like all-star little guys Dave Wellington and Ryan Keys before him, Adams is worth his weight in gold, willing to accept that his worth won’t be neatly summarized in statistics.

“We definitely have the throwing game if we need it, but we haven’t needed it,” said Adams. “It’s definitely a lot more run support being a wide receiver on this team.”

For the third time in nine seasons, Lisbon will face Foxcroft Academy for the Class C championship on Saturday night. Kickoff time is 6 p.m. at Portland’s Fitzpatrick Stadium.

The schools split the two previous contests. Foxcroft won on the Fitzpatrick turf in 2003. Lisbon drove 98 yards in the final four minutes of regulation in 1997 to score the winning touchdown at Lawrence High School in Fairfield.

In addition to upholding his school’s title tradition, Adams has kept his family name in the mix. Older brother Ken was an all-conference fullback for the Greyhounds, while Josh was a lineman.

“It’s been in my family. I’m the last one,” he said.

Adams said that Lisbon’s defense has become an extended family this fall, and that the Greyhounds’ success is a product of that unity.

His individual game evolved as the season progressed, also, beginning with the first game in the ongoing scoreless streak when Lisbon leveled Old Orchard Beach 30-0 on Oct. 14.

“I think that was a real eye-opener for Nick, because we were worried about Old Orchard’s passing game, and he had nine tackles,” Mynahan said. “You don’t expect that, so it’s a bonus. But he’s had a great year. We’re all very happy for Nick.

“We knew he was going to be OK, but he’s become a lot better than OK.”

Also part of the school’s winning ways in wrestling and track and field, Adams knows that Saturday’s game could be the last time he wears a football uniform.

He has met the coaching staff at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Football wouldn’t be an option at other schools on his short list of college choices.

“If (football is) there, it’s there,” Adams said.

There will be no ifs Saturday night. You might not catch a glimpse of No. 83 unless he’s in the middle of a gang tackle or liberating the open field for another Ervin acceleration to paydirt. But make no mistake: He’s there.