Nick White and Cort Lefebvre of Freeport celebrate after White rushed for a touchdown during Saturday’s football game in Lisbon. Eli Canfield/The Times Record
LISBON — The Freeport football team felt that it had left a lot on the gridiron as it walked off the field following last Friday’s loss to Foxcroft Academy.
They made up for it Saturday afternoon against Lisbon.
The Falcons ran hard, made plays through the air when they had to, and forced four Lisbon turnovers that proved to be the difference in a 27-13 victory.
“We had our backs against the wall to start, we left it all out there and it feels amazing,” said Freeport’s Danny Casale. “Our defense was totally light-out today (Saturday).”
The Greyhounds mustered just 146 yards of total offense, with 132 coming on the ground. The Falcons picked off Lisbon quarterback Jimmy Fitzsimmons three times and forced a fumble inside their own 30. Fitzsimmons struggled, finishing just 1 of 8 for 14 yards with three interceptions and a lost fumble. His one completion came on a fourth-down touchdown pass early in the fourth quarter, a 14-yard pass to Ethayn Roberts.
“We wanted this one bad, this was our biggest game of the season after how last week went,” said Freeport quarterback Aidan Heath, who rushed for a 4-yard touchdown and finished 6 for 10 with 87 yards passing. “We didn’t want to be 2-2, that’s a whole lot worse than 3-1.”
Nikolas Nikitin-Gruntfest of Lisbon (52) and teammate Owen Smith look to tackle Tony Casale of Freeport (21) during a football game on Saturday at Lisbon High School. Eli Canfield/The Times Record
Jordan Knighton rushed for touchdowns of 9 and 26 yards and ran 14 times for 115 yards overall to pace the Falcons’ offense. Nick White rushed six times for 40 yards, including a 26-yard touchdown just 43 seconds into the game, but he left early due to cramping in both calves.
“Honestly, it was the offensive line paving the way for me,” Knighton said. “They gave me great holes and blocked hard, I just took it from there.”
White’s touchdown came on just the second play of the game after Heath found Casale on the first play of the game for a 37-yard pass.
“Starting like that was big for us,” Heath said. “It definitely gave us a lot of momentum that we were able to use throughout the game.”
Lisbon, which has only three seniors, falls to 0-3.
“I thought we ran the ball well at times and played decently against the run up the middle,” Lisbon head coach Chris Kates said. “We still have a lot of things to clean up, though.”
Lisbon standout running back Nick Blair went down early on in the first quarter after he suffered an apparent shoulder injury. He didn’t return to action. Lisbon was led on the ground by Colby Levasseur, who rushed 17 times for 66 yards and a touchdown. Jordan Cabral added 41 yards on the ground, while Fitzsimmons had 11.
Jimmy Fitzsimmons of Lisbon (12) prepares to take a snap during Saturday’s football game at Lisbon High School. Eli Canfield/The Times Record
“A lot of guys stepped up today and played well, but the turnovers still hurt us,” Kates said. “At some point, we can only use excuses for so long; we have to start cleaning that up, and that starts with me and the coaching staff.”
After White got the Freeport offense going early, the Greyhounds responded with an eight-play drive resulting in a Levasseur 11-yard touchdown run to give Lisbon a 7-6 lead.
Freeport took control from there, outscoring the Greyhounds 21-6 the rest of the way.
“We made some adjustments after that first drive,” Casale said. “They worked, we stayed the course the rest of the way.”
The Falcons improve to 3-1 and will face Poland next Saturday in their homecoming game. Lisbon will hit the road Friday night to play Winthrop/Monmouth/Hall-Dale.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
