FARMINGTON — Ryan Backus saw the open Skowhegan receiver break across the middle of the field and prepared himself to make a play that would preserve Mt. Blue’s precarious lead for at least a few more moments.

Then the Cougars’ safety looked up and saw the football sailing over the receiver’s head, and he figured he might as well make a play that may have not only saved the game, but extended Mt. Blue’s season.

Backus’ interception at his own 16 with 1:44 remaining not only gave Mt. Blue an 8-0 victory over its rivals, but may have sent the Cougars to the playoffs. If Brunswick beats Mt. Ararat on Saturday, the Cougars are in.

“I saw the receiver coming at me, and I was going to hit him, but the quarterback overthrew the ball,” said Backus, who moments later put the game on ice with a big 17-yard run for a first down. “If he had caught it, it would have been very hard to come back from that.”

“This is one of the great senior classes we’ve ever had here,” Mt. Blue coach Gary Parlin said. “We have just eight of them, but they all just play their butts off. All of them just wanted to beat Skowhegan and make the playoffs so bad.”

The Mt. Blue defense made two huge fourth-quarter stands that allowed Alec Wallace’s 1-yard TD plunge in the second quarter to stand up. The first came at the end of a grinding 21-play, 75-yard Skowhegan drive that ate 10½ minutes off the game clock. On 3rd-and-goal at the Cougar 5, a blitzing Zach Tracy stood up Skowhegan running back Taylor Bradley (33 carries, 130 yards) at the line of scrimmage, then Ethan Kyes finished Bradley off for a 3-yard loss.

That forced Skowhegan QB Jordan McGowan to throw on fourth down. His pass in the right flat was complete to Garrett Nelson, but Dana Kane dropped Nelson at the 3 to stifle the Indians’ best scoring chance.

“We were all worn down and then the seniors just spoke up, because this could have been our last game,” said senior defensive end Nick Watson, who had a sack. “One more play on fourth down, and we stopped them.”

The Cougars (3-5) stopped the Indians four different times with turnovers in the first half (three fumbles, one interception). A bobbled snap on Skowhegan’s first possession halted a promising drive and gave the Cougars the ball at their own 34. Thirteen plays later, Wallace pounded it in from the 1 and Backus hooked up with Dustin Tracy on the two-point pass.

Backus ripped a completed pass out of the hands of Kaleb Austin on Skowhegan’s (3-5) ensuing drive, then Kyes recovered a fumble at midfield on the next. A Jake Malone interception completed the quartet of takeaways, but the Cougars, who struggled to move the ball on the ground (85 net rushing yards) couldn’t capitalize any further.

“We went in at halftime thinking we should have had a minimum 14 or 16 points,” Parlin said.