To hear Dick Mynahan tell it, the ending to Lisbon’s season and to his four-plus decades coaching football there sounded pretty familiar.

“It ended with a good team making a good play,” Mynahan said. “They had a great second half. They’ve got some real talented athletes. And the kid knew what to do with it.”

Except it wasn’t Mynahan’s team, one week removed, from a miracle victory of its own, It was Maine Central Institute that played the underdog role, that made the adjustments in the second half, and kept its cool when Fitzpatrick Stadium seemed to be collapsing around them on one final play.

“Give them credit,” Mynahan said.

For most of his 30 years as head coach, it has so often been Mynahan’s team getting the credit for standing toe-to-toe with a bigger opponent, for being resilient, and for never giving up.

This time, it was the Huskies who pulled the rabbit out of the hat with a stunning final play, Eli Bussell’s mad dash for the end zone after he mishandled the snap on a field goal attempt that gave MCI a 20-14 win Saturday night.

The shock on the Lisbon sideline mirrored the reaction on Winthrop/Monmouth’s sideline the previous Saturday, when the Greyhounds’ Tyler Halls and Kurtis Bolton hooked up on a 58-yard completion in the waning seconds to set up the winning score from the 1-yard-line on the final play of a 20-17 win.

That play and that game made it seem the Greyhounds were destined to send Mynahan out with a fourth state championship. But the story book ending turned out to be the Huskies’.

“We really wanted to get this win for him,” Halls said. “It didn’t turn out right, but he’s had a hell of a career. He’ll go down as the best coach to ever coach at Lisbon and he deserves that.”

Hall, Mynahan and all of Lisbon knew they weren’t entitled to anything but the best the Greyhounds had to give. Which is precisely what they got.

Among those comforting Mynahan after one last word with his team were his wife, Reine and his son, Richard Jr.

A 1989 Lisbon graduate, he played quarterback for his father in one of his first seasons as head coach. He now lives and works outside of Boston but made it back to Maine for last week’s game and Saturday’s finale, bringing with him one of the five grandchildren his father plans to spend more time with in retirement.

“I’ve watched him have some big wins and some big losses and he reacts the same way,” Mynahan Jr. said. “He’s appropriately humble win or lose and he’s always gracious.”

Indeed, the Greyhounds were appropriately humble but proud in defeat. Their coach was proud, too. After sending hundreds of boys into adulthood with a full understanding of commitment, discipline and respect, his final Lisbon team showed its gratitude by exemplifying what their coach was teaching.

“They’re just typical Lisbon kids,” Mynahan Sr. said. “This has been one of my steadiest teams as far as never missing practice and being one of the hardest-working teams. These kids have learned some lessons that I think will take them a long way in life. They’ve learned how to work hard, to be a team and to win together and lose together.”

Was it the ending that the 71-year-old Mynahan deserved after giving so much of himself to the game and Lisbon’s kids?

Who says it was really an ending? Football may be over, but being a father, grandfather, husband and mentor didn’t stop for Mynahan Saturday night.

“My wife likes to say it’s not about the end, it’s about next,” he said. “Next is next.”