LISBON — Bryce Snyder doesn’t wear the dirtiest uniform on the Yarmouth football team at the end of every game. Heck, neither the spelling of his name nor the corresponding uniform number were correct in Saturday’s game program.

That shouldn’t imply any lack of importance or intensity in the 5-foot-11, 170-pound junior.

“He’s a star baseball player. He pitches,” said Yarmouth coach Jim Hartman. “He’s been in that situation so many times on the mound, it’s not a problem.”

Saturday, that situation was a 28-yard, game-winning field goal. It would have been good from 40, maybe longer, and it split the uprights with 14.9 seconds remaining to give Yarmouth a 16-14 victory over Lisbon in a battle of unbeaten Western Class C foes.

Yarmouth (5-0) answered a go-ahead Lisbon touchdown by methodically driving 45 yards in the final five minutes. The Clippers converted two third downs, one with the help of a Lisbon encroachment penalty to shorten third-and-12.

“We went over it in practice numerous times. To me it was like a normal kick,” Snyder said. “You’ve just got to hit it. I treat every kick the same, even extra points. Just try to hit it my hardest and right down the middle.”

Eleven consecutive runs without a pass implied the faith Hartman harbored in his kicker. The coach even tried to milk the clock completely after using the last run to line up the ball in the middle of the field.

“I wanted to call the timeout at one second,” Hartman said. “We called it at 19.”

That left Lisbon (4-1) with nine seconds after the ensuing kick return to weave a miracle. The Greyhounds nearly did.

Luke Caron hit Josh Pomerleau deep in the right flat for a 27-yard gain. Pomerleau raced out of bounds at the Yarmouth 29 to stop the clock with two seconds left.

Caron lofted his final pass toward the right front pylon. Yarmouth’s Asa Arden was there to knock it out of Zack Greene’s reach, although any catch likely would have been out of bounds, anyway.

“They have a lot of speed to the outside. They ran the ball well that last drive,” said Lisbon coach Dick Mynahan. “We knew they had a kicker. We knew they were going to be going for that field goal. It didn’t seem like we could stop them. A couple times we had them and let go. That happens.”

Held in check for most of the game, Lisbon looked it would find a way to win as it has in so many tense Campbell Conference showdowns in Mynahan’s tenure.

The Greyhounds recovered from the mental sting of a lost fumble inside Yarmouth’s 5-yard line late in the third quarter by keeping the Clippers pinned and taking advantage of a short field in the fourth.

After Tobey Harrington’s 23-yard punt return with just over six minutes left, Lisbon drove 32 yards to the would-be winning touchdown in five plays. Four of those were runs by Harrington, including a 15-yard burst off right tackle into the end zone.

Lisbon lined up to kick and elected to fake, trying for what wound up being a fateful two points. Yarmouth broke up Caron’s pass to Greene in the end zone.

In addition to that big stop, Yarmouth limited Lisbon to 128 yards, fewer than three per offensive play.

“I don’t think anyone gives our defense credit,” said Hartman, whose Clippers have won 11 straight regular-season games after losing 19 of the first 20 in their program‘s history. “Hopefully after today they do.”

Yarmouth bounced back from a special teams miscue to lead 13-8 at the half.

The Clippers tried to field Greene’s punt just in front of the goal line instead of letting it fall in for a touchback. Yarmouth’s returner muffed, then briefly recovered, but Pomerleau stripped away the ball into the waiting hands of Ryan Riordan for a Lisbon touchdown.

Lisbon snapped directly to kicked Harrington on the PAT. Harrington threw a jump pass to Greene for an 8-6 lead.

Yarmouth counterpunched when junior Anders Overhaug — who rushed for a 45-yard touchdown on the Clippers’ third play from scrimmage — broke three tackles and rambled 58 more before the Greyhounds pushed him out at the 2.

Freshman quarterback Brady Neujhar scored two plays later from a yard out.

“I felt bad about the way they got their touchdown at the end of the half,” Mynahan said. “It took away a lot of momentum. That was probably a play that we could have easily had for no gain and let him go. We had a lot of missed tackles today that gave them big plays.”

Overhaug finished with 14 carries for 169 yards to lead Yarmouth while Lisbon kept Nick Proscia (13 for 51) and Nate Pingitore (12 for 29) under wraps.

“This is a game of match-ups. We adjusted to each others’ match-ups,” Hartman said. “He actually treated us like we ran the double wing. We’ve never seen that. Now that it’s on the film we can handle that. He took 10 (Pingitore) away because 24 (Overhaug) hasn’t run the ball much, so he didn’t know about him.”

There are no secrets now, including Snyder.

“We came out in the end, and it’s not just my win,” the kicker said. “It’s the whole team’s win.”

koakes@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link