LISBON FALLS — Old Orchard Beach was caught heavily outnumbered in Saturday’s WMC football clash with Lisbon, Saturday.
On the sidelines, and more importantly, on the scoreboard.
The undermanned Seagulls (0-2), with barely two dozen players available, fell 34-10 to Lisbon (2-0), one of the top programs Western Class C has to offer.
A rash of miscues didn’t help their cause.
“It’s a war of attrition,” said OOB coach Dean Plante. “We’re not deep enough, or skilled enough, or experienced enough. Little (mistakes), we have trouble overcoming.”
They’re even tougher to overcome with a four touchdown deficit to dig out from.
That became OOB’s task early in the third quarter, after Zach Splude scampered 20 yards on a quarterback keeper.
Splude, normally a running back, was playing in place of injured starting signal caller, Ryan Riordan, and hurled two first half touchdown passes.
Such production from a stand in spoke to the found on the 43-man Greyhound roster.
“It’s one of the biggest teams we’ve had in a long time,” said Lisbon’s Dick Mynahan, who is in his 25th season. “Some of them are freshmen, but it still gives us options. We try to play a lot of kids through the course of the game.”
The Gulls, who failed to make a first down in the first half, finally found some traction in the fourth quarter.
Behind quarterback Jeremy Legere, OOB moved to the Lisbon 7, but couldn’t crack the end zone on four tries.
However, after the Greyhounds took over on their own 1, OOB’s Bryan Roberts and Kyle Christensen sacked Splude in the end zone for a safety, accounting for the Gulls’ first two points of the season.
Then, with 7:08 left in the game, Legere hit Spencer Leask with a 19 yard scoring toss.
Legere then found Andrew Fleury in the back right corner for the two-point conversion, making it 28-10.
“We knew what we were looking for,” said Plante, “and that was four quarters of effort. He (Mynahan) had mixed in some ”˜twos’ (second stringers) and we moved the ball agains a mixture of ”˜ones’ and ”˜twos’. What we did was force them to play four quarters, and we gave effort. That’s what we were looking for.”
The Gulls will visit Dirigo, the third of four consecutive tilts with opponents who made last year’s playoffs, Friday.
— Contact Dan Hickling at dhickling@journaltribune.com.
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