WALES — The Oak Hill football team knew it was coming. Lisbon was banking on it.

“At the half, we kept telling the kids that Lisbon was going to make a run,” Oak Hill coach Stacen Doucette said. “We knew it. The kids knew it.”

Leading 21-0 at halftime, Oak Hill watched Lisbon storm back to make things interesting — twice the Greyhounds pulled within a score.

But in the end, No. 2 Oak Hill hung on to beat No. 7 Lisbon 28-21 in a Campbell Conference Class C quarterfinal game Saturday afternoon.

“We lost a little bit of confidence but we pulled through,” said Oak Hill sophomore running back Alex Mace, who rushed for a game-high 118 yards and a touchdown on 18 carries. “We were a little nervous, but we gave it all we had.”

Oak Hill (8-1) will host No. 3 Dirigo (7-2) in a semifinal game Saturday at a time to be determined. Lisbon, which overcame a dreadful first half, finished 4-5.

Oak Hill sophomore Kyle Flaherty rushed for 97 yards on 18 carries. Quarterback Parker Asselin also rushed for 35 yards and a pair of touchdowns for the Raiders who seemed to have this game in control from the outset.

Mace opened the scoring with an 8-yard touchdown run with 8 minutes, 18 seconds left in the first quarter. The drive covered 63 yards and chewed up about four minutes on the clock.

“There were a lot of holes to run through,” Mace said.

Asselin and Mace padded the lead when they capped yet another clock-killing drive at the start of the second quarter.

In a new-to-the-playbook play, the Raiders lined up in a double-wing formation, but Mace then squirted out to the corner of the end zone.

Asselin found the wide-open Mace for a 13-yard touchdown.

“We put the play in this week,” Asselin said. “Out of the double wing, they expected us to run. Mace leaked out and ran to the corner. There was nobody else there. I knew if I missed him, I was going to get screamed at.”

The 15-play, 52-yard drive took 7:33 off the clock. Asselin rushed for a 2-yard touchdown later in the quarter and the Raiders took a commanding 21-0 lead. 

The Greyhounds ran just 14 plays for 12 net yards in the first half.

“We never got a chance to get going,” Lisbon coach Dick Mynahan said. “In the second half, we got into rhythm. We caught fire.”

Quincy Thompson, who had three carries for minus-4 yards in the first half, exploded in the third quarter.

The athletic junior playmaker rushed for a 17-yard touchdown and later set up another score later in the quarter. He finished with 61 yards on 10 carries.

“Quincy is a dynamic player,” said Doucette, who was an assistant to Mynahan at Lisbon for nearly two decades. “He’s one of the better athletes in the conference.”

Kyle Bourget threw a 7-yard touchdown to Brandon Hovey with 2:10 left in the third to pull Lisbon within 21-14.

However, the Raiders responded in the fourth on a 1-yard TD run by Asselin. Oak Hill then ran off the last four minutes of the clock to preserve the victory.

“We knew it was going to be tough,” Asselin said. “We just gave it everything we had.”

Bill Stewart — 621-5640
bstewart@centralmaine.com