WINTHROP – Lisbon already had the No. 1 seed in next week’s Campbell Conference playoffs wrapped up heading into its season-finale with Winthrop, but the Greyhounds weren’t going to hold anything back, least of all Levi Ervin.
“The deeper we go in the game, the more (carries) I get,” Ervin said.
Ervin gained steam as the game wore on and ran for 225 yards and four touchdowns on a season-high 36 carries as the Greyhounds eliminated the Ramblers from the Western C playoff hunt with a 35-2 win Friday night.
The Greyhounds (8-1) will host No. 4 Livermore Falls in the semifinals next Saturday.
“All year, we’ve been holding back Levi, giving him 14 or 15 carries, but I told Levi when it got down to crunch time, he was going to have to carry the ball 25 times, 35 times for us,” said Lisbon coach Dick Mynahan. “I saw a great athlete out there tonight. He ran every carry as hard as he did the first one.”
Winthrop (5-4) was able to keep the 6-foot-4, 210-pound senior from any long runs for the first three quarters. In fact, junior Dan Willis had the longest jaunt of the night, a 60-yarder that set up Ervin and the Greyhounds’ first score, a four-yard TD on their second possession of the game. But Ervin kept the chains moving with numerous second efforts that turned two or three-yard gains into four and five-yard gains.
“Ervin is going to break the first tackle,” said Winthrop coach Joel Stoneton. “You have to gang-tackle him. He was able to lower the shoulder and get the corner on us.”
Ervin’s three-yard touchdown run and subsequent two-point run gave the Greyhounds a 16-0 lead early in the second quarter. The Ramblers got on the board later in the period by tackling Lisbon QB Chris Brunick in the end zone for a safety, but Lisbon’s defense shut out the Ramblers on three red zone opportunities in the first half to maintain the two-touchdown margin at intermission.
“We drove the ball. We got into the red zone five times. You have to be able to punch it in to win,” said Stoneton.
“Our defense is working hard. We feel that our defense can’t be scored on every week,” said Ervin, who had one of the Greyhounds’ four interceptions of Winthrop QB Travis Frautten. “Our motto is shutouts, and that’s what we look for every week.”
Winthrop senior tailback Tavis Hasenfus finished with 110 yards on 23 carries to go over the 1,400-yard mark for the season and unofficially set a new school single-season rushing record.
But it was Ervin who racked up the big yardage in the second half, plowing through a tired Rambler defense for runs of 13, 25 and 54 yards, as well as two touchdowns. Ryan Giusto added an eight-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter.
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