This week’s Fab Five category: Five Maine high school football games from his career as a fan and as a journalist that staff writer Kalle Oakes will never forget until the day he’s put on the permanent inactive list …

5. Madison 28, Lake Region 15, 1983 Class C Championship. OK, I’m mostly including this one to torture Whitehouse with his alma mater’s close-but-no-gold moment. But it’s also here for the historical significance of Bobby Wilder, who rallied the Bulldogs in the second half to the win at Auburn’s Walton Field. With his ability to throw the ball, Wilder, now the coach at Old Dominion University, moved Maine high school football away from the three yards and a cloud of dust mentality forever.

4. Marshwood 26, Skowhegan 14, 1989 Class A Championship. The first state final I ever covered. It was the Steve Knight Show. The University of Maine-bound halfback scored every point for the Hawks, who set a record that day that probably won’t be matched. Can’t be equaled, for that matter, until the MPA acquiesces to the outcry for four classes. Marshwood is the only school to win state titles as a member of Classes A, B, C and D.

3. Bangor 28, Lewiston 25, 2010 Eastern Class A Championship. Bill County and the Devils would love it if I’d forget this game, but I haven’t after a year and I won’t after 50 years, if I’m blessed to have that many more. Lewiston going for the gusto on fourth-and-a-chain-link from its own 10-yard line with a late fourth-quarter lead is what everyone will remember. But the game had enough monumental drives, brutal hits and defensive and special teams game to make it one of the damnedest I’d ever seen, even before that.

2. Livermore Falls 18, Jay 14, 1980, MVC Championship. There was no chance of my making a list without some edition of Tigers-Andies on it. Almost went with last year’s series finale for the historical implications, but this Halloween Night classic from the heyday of the rivalry stands alone. Both schools were undefeated. The winner of the traditional regular-season final would earn a trip to the Class C final. LF lunged to a 18-0 lead and held on by its fingernails. There were 5,000 people there and 10,000 more who say they were. I was 7, and I was forever hooked on high school football.

1. Lisbon 19, Foxcroft 14, 1997 Class C championship. My love of this game is so well documented that a longtime Lisbon football parent and booster, the late Rick Foss, sent me both a VHS tape and a DVD copy of it as Christmas gifts over the years. The game was played between snow banks at Keyes Field in Fairfield with temperatures still in the low-30s after a Saturday blizzard. Lisbon stuffed Foxcroft at the goal line with four minutes to go, then drove 96 yards to the winning score. It was so emotionally draining that my heart is still racing as I write this, all these years later.