By Randy Whitehouse,Staff Writer

LISBON FALLS -The Lisbon Greyhounds went back to the basics to prepare for Saturday’s Campbell Conference championship with Boothbay.

For the offensive line, that meant spending twice as much time working on the lineman’s equivalent of purgatory, the blocking sled

“It was good, though. We worked hard,” senior guard Jessie Walker said. “Coach (Dick Mynahan) told us coming into the game that’s how we were going to win this game.”

As is usually the case, Mynahan’s words proved prophetic. The Greyhounds dominated the line of scrimmage in their 36-0 trouncing of the Seahawks to earn their second conference title in three years.

“We went 18 minutes (on the sled) on Monday, 12 on Tuesday and eight on Wednesday,” Mynahan said. “We figured that they were going to do a lot to try to stop (running back) Levi (Ervin), and I told the kids they really can’t stop Levi without stopping Lisbon. And Lisbon is the line.”

Lisbon is the line and the talented 6-foot-4, 215-pound senior running behind it. All Mynahan asks the line to do is give Ervin two or three yards of steam. They did that early and often, which is why Ervin eclipsed Boothbay’s total offensive production in the first half on Lisbon’s first drive. He carried the ball three times for 50 yards, scoring on a 6-yard run that put the Greyhounds ahead for good little more than two minutes into the game.

“If we get him running early, it just gives us a lot of confidence,” Mynahan said.

Lisbon continued to pound Ervin for the rest of the half, and why not? They’d pretty much kept him on a pitch count during the regular season so they could turn him into a workhorse in November.

“And the key is,” Mynahan said, “if we can get Levi running early, then we can get other people involved, as well.”

Indeed, as soon as Boothbay’s defense started keying in on Ervin, Lisbon was ready to unleash its other weapons, specifically junior running backs Dan Willis and Joe Stevens, who ripped off nifty scoring runs of 37 and 30 yards, respectively, to put the game away early.

Ervin put an exclamation point on his outstanding day on the first play from scrimmage in the second half.

He took the handoff, ran right, faked two defenders out of their shoes, then sprinted down the sideline for a 59-yard touchdown.

He finished with 175 yards and two touchdowns on 23 carries, plus 44 yards and another score receiving. Even the line, which does all of the grunt work and gets none of the glory (but a lot of credit from Ervin himself) had to step back and enjoy watching him at work.

“It’s all right,” joked senior guard Elijah Trefts. “No, really it’s a great experience watching him run. I think the best thing is after I’m done making my block, I can just watch him run past me.”

If Trefts and Walker want to continue watching him, they’ll probably have to get reacquainted with the sled next week. But they won’t mind.

“We’ll work for it, just for Levi, because we’re getting him ready for next week,” Walker said.