By Kevin Mills,Staff Writer

POLAND – They’ll be the first to tell you that they were a little outmatched and overwhelmed in the first few weeks of the football season.

The last two outings, however, the Poland Knights have had an opponent a little more to their liking. After earning their first win over Fryeburg last week, the Knights pulled off another victory Saturday with a rain-soaked 26-20 overtime win over Falmouth.

“We faced four good teams at the beginning of the year,” said Poland coach Rick Kramer. “Literally, they were better than us. We also faced teams that were much more physically dominant than us.”

The last two weeks the competition was on par with the Knights, and Poland managed to gut out hard-fought victories after rallying from behind late in regulation.

“It was definitely a coming out party for some of our kids, some of our kids that really needed to come out,” said Kramer.

It was the Poland defense that came up biggest. After Falmouth used just two plays to take a 20-14 lead early in the second half, the Yachtsmen were held to just 48 yards and two first downs the rest of the way. That included a stop in overtime that preserved Poland’s 26-20 lead.

“That was the entire team,” said Kramer on the game-winning stuff. “Our linebackers did a really good job finding out where the ball was going to go. It took us six games to find linebackers that will do what they’re supposed to do. That’s huge for us.”

Falmouth had gone to Josh Parks on back-to-back runs that gained a total of three yards. Kevin Smith gained five yards on third down, forcing a fourth-and-two from the 2. Smith rushed around the right side but met an army of Poland defenders.

“It was what we called a blast play’ with two big blockers that go through the left tackle,” said Falmouth coach Rob Grover.

Poland had taken the lead on its first possession in overtime. After Hunter Travers gained a yard, Tyler Merchant burst up the middle and spun off a defender toward the end zone. He fumbled the ball, but lineman Whitney Cross pounced on it.

“We just wanted to run the ball and keep doing what we’d been doing,” said Kramer. “The problem is we kept doing what we’d been doing and fumbled the football.”

Poland fumbled eight times and lost three of them. One of those turnovers led to Falmouth’s score to start the second half. The Yachtsmen took over on their own 36 and converted when Parks broke loose for a 59-yard scoring run with 9:11 left in the quarter. An unsportsmanlike penalty after the touchdown pushed Falmouth back on the conversion and a pass attempt to Brady Frost fell short.

“Obviously, we couldn’t throw,” said Grover. “So we had to go to the power football. We felt we could do it. For the most part, we could, but a couple of times they shut us down.

Poland tied the game with 7:12 left in regulation with a 53-yard drive. Travers, who led all rushers with 188 yards on 35 carries, took it in from the 16. A fumble on the conversion try nixed that chance.

“We kept making mistakes,” said Kramer. “We tried to kill ourselves. At least they kind of did what they were supposed to do in the last series or two. We’d try to do things and then we’d make a mistake or two. They just kill you. You can’t fumble the football, but today was a day you’re going to do that.”

A Falmouth fumble recovered by Josh Gilpatrick gave the Knights a crack at the game-winner with 1:46 left in regulation, but that drive stalled at the 15 as time expired.

Falmouth got a four-yard run from Smith in the first quarter, but Poland quarterback Joe Douglass matched that with a keeper from the 3. After a Parks’ three-yard run in the second quarter, Douglass hit Chad Wesleigh with an 11-yard pass with 31 seconds left in the half.