Lisbon’s emotional reaction to its Western Maine title was the sign of a team that knows it beat the odds.
LISBON FALLS – Jacob Sprinkle held the face mask of his black-and-white football helmet in his trembling right hand.
Sandwiched between two similarly strapping colleagues on the Lisbon High School football team, the 6-foot, 195-pound two-way lineman did something that isn’t supposed to come naturally to teen-age tough guys traveling at full speed on the highway toward manhood.
Fully accustomed to participating in things that aren’t “supposed” to happen, he held his wind-burned face high in the November air and shed sincere tears of joy.
“It’s amazing. We had a great season,” said Sprinkle. “We weren’t supposed to be in this game. We weren’t supposed to be in the playoffs. It’s tough for me to even talk about it.”
If the us-against-them chatter in the Lisbon locker room was mere propaganda designed to give the Greyhounds an emotional leg up on the rest of a balanced Campbell Conference, someone forgot to give Sprinkle the memorandum.
Sprinkle wasn’t the only one wrestling true emotions of pleasant disbelief after last Saturday’s 28-14 victory over Boothbay completed an unimaginable, undefeated Western Class C championship season.
Mitch Harmon’s voice trailed off ever-so-slightly as he discussed his catch of a desperation pass on the final play of the first half, one that tied the game and deposited the equivalent of a million bucks in the Greyhounds’ emotional bank.
“There was no way I was letting go of that ball,” Harmon said.
For anyone seeking a symbolic moment in Lisbon’s march to the regional title, Harmon’s was it.
His handiwork mirrored the manner in which the Greyhounds heard coach Dick Mynahan’s message in August. Mynahan reminded his young team often that nobody expected them to contend for a playoff berth, let alone win it all.
The smattering of seniors and boatload of underclassmen under his watch understood the message, grabbed it and held on for dear life.
Eleven victories later, Lisbon will face fellow unbeaten and Eastern Maine champion Foxcroft Academy for the Class C crown. Game time is 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Fitzpatrick Stadium in Portland.
Toughness is the Greyhounds’ calling card. Prior to the playoffs, they won their most difficult games on the road, using late flourishes to ward off Jay, Boothbay and even pesky newcomer Cape Elizabeth.
All year, Lisbon scored its most telling touchdowns with a counter-punching, rope-a-dope style that would make Muhammad Ali smile. When the Greyhounds’ three-headed backfield of John Tefft, Tony Walker and Chris Kates delivered a big play, it usually came on the heels of a timely fumble recovery, interception or goal-line stand.
Harmon’s lone touchdown reception of the season punctuated a 98-yard drive in less than two minutes after Lisbon snuffed out four consecutive Boothbay rushes inside its own 5-yard line.
“That’s our motto: Bend but don’t break,” said Sprinkle. “We’ve talked about the team that won the state championship (against Foxcroft) in 1997, and that’s how they were. And they beat Boothbay in the Western Maine final. History repeats itself.”
The Greyhounds think numerically as well as historically. Another mantra in the Lisbon camp this fall was “one heartbeat.”
It was started by a patchwork offensive line that enjoyed almost no experience together before the third week of August. The point emphasized by Sprinkle, Chris Waters, Sean Unterkoefler, Elijah Treffts, Ryan Strout and Randy Chaloux is that while there were no individual superstars in the group, there wasn’t a more cohesive unit in the Campbell Conference.
One of Mynahan’s preferred digits is three.
“We talked about the ’97 state championship team and how they proved you could accomplish a lot in three minutes,” Mynahan said. “We talked about playing the game in three-minute periods and seeing how far it would take us.”
The answer, potentially: Forty-eight minutes away from another cheerfully tearful celebration.
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