“He was bringing the team up,” Greyhounds coach Dick Mynahan said. “That’s what a leader does, he knows when you’re down, you need to be brought back up. Called it a great game, and a great game it was.”
Shortly after the team exchanged handshakes at midfield, and just minutes after MCI’s Eli Bussell turned a field-goal attempt into the game-winning touchdown run, Halls had a quick talk with his Lisbon teammates, and tried to take away some of the devastation they were feeling.
When Halls’ team needed him, he rose to the occasion.
The same thing happened earlier Saturday evening at Fitzpatrick Stadium. The Huskies had the Greyhounds’ power-run game solved for most of the first half. So the offense started going through Halls, with quarterback runs to the outside and inside.
Halls outran and outmaneuvered the Huskies in the second quarter, and scored on touchdown runs of 4 and 10 yards to give Lisbon a 14-0 lead.
The Greyhounds were fortunate enough this season to not need Halls to carry the offense. Running with Noah and Lucas Francis and Jared Glover was usually enough. But Saturday, they had to unleash Halls, and he took over.
“We held him back during the season because we didn’t want him to get injured,” Mynahan said. “There were a lot of games when we didn’t need him, but when we needed him, we brought him up front. He’s always played the way he played tonight. I think he had a great game.”
Halls finished with 19 carries for 112 yards. He also completed 4 of 7 passes for 49 yards.
At the time, it seemed like Halls’ takeover of the latter half of the second quarter might be enough to carry the Greyhounds to their first state championship since 2006, and provide a fitting end to Mynahan’s distinguished coaching career.
In the end, it wasn’t quite enough. But that takeover highlighted what Halls has meant to Lisbon the past four years.
“Anytime you have an athlete like him, he gave us a chance to win every single game we had,” Mynahan said. “Other teams, especially, had to really gameplan for him.
“He’s been a pleasure to coach. Great kid. Great athlete. He’s going to be very successful in college, going to play college football as a wide receiver and I’m sure he’ll shine.”
Halls’ final official act as a captain of the Lisbon football team was to receive the Greyhounds’ trophy for their runner-up finish in Class D. He confidently walked forward, took the trophy, hoisted it towards fans on both sides of the field.
It was after that, while hugging a fellow senior, that the tears briefly fell down Halls’ face. He wraps up his career having played in three Class D South regional finals and one state championship game. That’s a lot of winning.
“I didn’t get to experience winning states, but other than that, I’ve experienced everything,” Halls said. “It was an awesome ride. I’m just proud to be on this team.”
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