It’s one thing to know an opponent. It’s another thing to stop them.

Oak Hill and Leavitt know each other well – maybe too well. Leavitt coach Mike Hathaway cut his coaching teeth as part of coach Bruce Nicholas’ staff early in the decade, and the two schools moved hand-in-hand from the Campbell Conference to the Pine Tree Conference shortly thereafter. And now here they are about to spend Halloween together (7 p.m., Leavitt High School) trying to play tricks on each other for the treat of advancing in the PTC playoffs.

“We’ve seen how they adjust to certain things we do and they’ve seen certain things that we adjust to and it’s going to come down to which team can draw up the right stuff and which players can execute it,” Hathaway said.

Top-seeded Leavitt (7-1) outexecuted No. 8 Oak Hill (2-6) on Sept. 12 to the tune of a 30-12 victory. The Raiders did a good job shutting down the PTC’s fourth-leading rusher, Josh Strickland (17 carries, 53 yards) and a decent job of containing the conference’s only 1,000-yard rusher, Tyler Green (16 carries, 97 yards). But the Hornets’ Eric Theiss connected for touchdown passes on 4th-and-19 and 4th-and-17. The first touchdown, to Strickland over the deep middle, came on a play the Raiders were expecting.

“We knew exactly what the play was going to be and Strickland caught it,” Nicholas said. “We had people in the right place, but we didn’t have the right people in the right place. We’re going to try to adjust our personnel to what they do.”

The Raiders essentially dared Theiss to beat them the last time and he did, completing half of his 14 pass attempts for 154 yards and three TDs, half of his TD output on the season. Matt Averill, who tied for the league lead in interceptions with five, leads an Oak Hill secondary that will have to close out the Hornets in third-and-long and fourth-and-long situations.

Turnovers have plagued the Raiders most of the season, but if they can hold onto the ball, they can burn up some clock and move the chains. Adam Hathorne led Oak Hill with 681 yards rushing. Quarterback Brett Turcotte, who threw for 89 yards and a touchdown in the first meeting, will try to keep the Hornets from loading up against the run.

“I’m sure they’re not going to get real far away from what they do well,” Hathaway said. “I think Hathorne has been a pretty good back for them at the end of the season, so I’m sure they’re going to try to run the ball off-tackle with him. Turcotte had a couple of good games toward the end of the year, so I’m sure there will be times where they try to spread us out, too.”

The Hornets lost one of their leading defenders, Jon Letourneau, to a knee injury last week, but they still have the conference’s two leading tacklers, Kolby Youland and Phil Russell around to harass the Raiders.

“We have to not turn the ball over. We almost have to play a perfect game,” Nicholas said.

What the Raiders can’t count on is being overlooked by a Leavitt squad coming off last week’s huge win over Gardiner.

“We’ve had a lunch-pail type of week,” Hathaway said. “We went right back and said this is a new season, everybody’s 0-0. We woke up early Saturday morning and practiced, just like we have been and got our film done and Monday we were doing agilities like we do in preseason. We’ve done our lifting all week and our film study. It was a big win, but we’ve got some guys that have been around these situations for a little while that realize if you lose a playoff game, you’re done.”

The winner of this game faces the winner of the 4-5 match-up between Morse and Winslow. Some have tabbed Morse as the favorite despite being the No. 5 seed because the Shipbuilders have beaten the top two seeds, Leavitt and Gardiner, and are perhaps the biggest team in the conference. They were more than impressive last week, blanking Oak Hill, 38-0, even though they were playing without the PTC’s second-leading rusher, Pat Wolfe, who has been sidelined with an ankle injury.

“We’ve played a lot of physical teams, but Morse is the most physical,” Nicholas said.

On the other side of the bracket, No. 3 Gardiner looks to bounce back from last week’s loss to Leavitt when it hosts No. 6 Hampden Academy, and No. 7 Waterville travels to No. 2 Mount Desert Island.