LEWISTON — Kyle Johnson led Bangor’s running attack and the Rams defense made a key stop to take down Lewiston 22-14 in a Class A North football semifinal Friday.

“I think for us, it’s just that’s our game plan coming into the game,” Johnson said. “We just run the ball and just do it effectively. And I think tonight we had some plays where there (were) a couple of setbacks, but then again, we just (stuck) to our attack and it worked great.”

Third-seeded Bangor (5-5) will face No. 1 Portland in the regional final next week. The Bulldogs trounced fourth-seeded Windham 42-14 on Friday.

Portland beat the Rams 35-7 in the teams’ regular season matchup Oct. 11. Bangor hasn’t lost since, reeling off four straight victories.

“We’ve had to weather some storms, but we’ve had some great victories here, and this last month has been a great restart for us,” Bangor coach David Morris said. “Our guys, just risen to the occasion and they’ve worked awful hard. You know, I’m just proud of our players. Our players win games, and I’m just proud of our players, the way that we’ve stuck with it and how we represented ourselves and, you know, just really fought hard.

“We got some very good football players and just it was a great game.”

Johnson, Bangor’s quarterback, carried the ball 16 times for 78 yards and three touchdowns. His second TD, a 1-yard run, capped a 17-play drive and gave Bangor a 15-14 lead late in the third quarter.

He gave the Rams an eight-point lead with a 26-yard scamper into the end zone with 3:07 left in the game.

“The last one, it’s just, I don’t know, it just went my way that time, able to keep my feet,” Johnson said. “But as much as it is me, it’s the whole team. It’s the defense to get the stops to get us in that situation to win. It’s the line to block like that. It says I might have scored, but all the credit goes to the whole entire team.”

The Bangor defense sealed the win by forcing a turnover on downs with 16 seconds left after Lewiston had driven to the Rams’ 25-yard line.

The second-seeded Blue Devils (5-4) started their final drive at their own 35. Quarterback Jeffrey Randall found Lonnie Thomas on third down for a 15-yard gain. Later in the drive, on fourth-and-7, Randall scrambled and leapt out of bounds at the 25 to pick up the first down and extend the drive.

Lewiston wasn’t able to move the ball on the next four plays and the drive stalled there.

“We got some untimely penalties, calls against us that took momentum away from us in big moments,” Lewiston coach Jason Versey said. “And it’s just heartbreaking.”

Johnson’s first touchdown of the game made it 6-0 for Bangor in the second quarter. The lead grew to 8-0 after Randall was called for intentional grounding while in the end zone, resulting in a safety.

The Blue Devils tied the game on their final possession of the first half. Randall connected with Thomas on a few passes, and Jayden Sands ran a few times to move the ball down the field. Sands scored when he recovered a Lewiston fumble in the end zone, then Ryker Paradis ran in the 2-point conversion to make it 8-8.

The Blue Devils ran the ball down the field early in the third quarter. Josue Luis carried for gains of 11 and 9 yards, and Randall ran for 33 yards and capped the drive with 3-yard TD run that gave Lewiston a 14-8 lead.

Randall finished with 12 carries for 66 yards and completed 11 of 21 passes for 71 yards with an interception. Sands gained 49 yards on eight carries.

“A little (rain) storm came in while we were trying to get some stuff done, and we couldn’t hang on to the ball,” Versey said, referring to the first quarter. “We couldn’t get anything rolling — another slow start for us. We came in the second half and came right down the field and did what we do, and it just wasn’t enough tonight.”