Oxford Hills quarterback Atticus Soehren tried hooking up with receiver Addison Brown on the Vikings’ first offensive play against Edward Little on Saturday, but the pass fell incomplete, even though Brown was wide open.

The connection looked much better the rest of the game, to the tune of four completions out of five attempts for 93 yards and three touchdowns.

Oxford Hills quarterback Atticus Soehren fires a short pass over Edward Little defender Isiah Lewis on Saturday. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

“We have a brotherhood going,” Brown said. “We have a very good connection. We have minds that think alike, and we have trust within each other.”

The first-half stats between the two juniors was modest, with only a 4-yard screen pass. The connection improved in the second half, but not before an 11-yard attempt into the end zone was a little high and through the hands of Brown, who said he felt like he needed to make a play after that.

Soehren went right back to Brown, but instead of throwing into the end zone he found his classmate just shy of the goal line, and Brown ran the rest of the way to the goal line.

The other two scoring connections, from 42 and 36 yards, were both catch-and-runs.

“I mean, how many yards after the catch did he have? Too many?” Soehren said. “My job is to get the ball to the guys that can make moves, and he’s one of those guys.”

Vikings coach Mark Soehren said one of the adjustments the team made going into the second half was to focus on getting the ball outside more, since the Red Eddies were clogging the middle. That meant getting the ball to players like Brown more.

“Actually the kids called some of those plays. They do a nice job coming back saying, ‘Listen, we see that the corner’s doing this, let’s run that.’ And that’s sort of how that happened,” Mark Soehren said. “It wasn’t necessarily halftime adjustment, but it was something we saw once we came out.”

GREYHOUNDS RUN ON ALL CYLINDERS

It might have seemed like Lisbon gave up on the passing game in the second half of Friday’s game at Spruce Mountain. But with the way the Greyhounds were running the ball, there was no reason to even bother calling a forward pass.

They gained 170 yards on 34 runs, while passing the ball just once. Four different players had touchdown runs in the win.

Lisbon’s Daytona McIver gets pushed out of bounds by Spruce Mountain’s Brandon Frey during Friday night’s football game in Livermore Falls. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

“I don’t think we have anybody that’s going to carry the ball 35, 40 times a game. It’s important for us to spread the ball around and kind of keep the defense guessing a little bit,” Lisbon coach Chris Kates said. “We were able to do that a little bit today because people were running hard and they were hitting the holes like they should be.”

Cam Bourget, who ran for two touchdowns, gave props to his offensive line.

“They were big. They opened the holes for me,” Bourget.

Fellow running backs Daytona McIver and Nick Blair also ran for touchdowns, as did quarterback Seth Leeman.

“I think just our conditioning kicked in,” Kates said. “We tried to play a lot of kids, and I think it helped us towards the end of the game. And I think our offensive line was very physical the entire second half, and it helped us wear them down a little bit.”

TALKING ‘BOUT PRACTICE

The Lisbon-Spruce Mountain game looked like a big one for the Class D South postseason picture going into Friday night, especially with the Greyhounds sitting at 2-2 and in need of a signature win.

They certainly prepared the right way to earn one.

“We had great practices this week, better than the practices before,” Bourget said. “We wanted to get better from last week, and we got better this week.”

The Phoenix, meanwhile, were the lone undefeated team in D South entering the second half of the season, but not anymore after dropping the home contest.

“Like I told them (after the game), ‘It’s over, move on. We got to have a better week,'” Phoenix coach David Frey said. “You know, we were fighting through a lot of these kids had been sick all week long, too, so it made it hard for practices.”

Frey said he had to balance taking it easy on his team to allow kids to get healthier and be ready for a physical battle against Lisbon. He wondered whether he made practices too light after the way Friday night’s game played out.

STILL SEARCHING FOR A WIN

Edward Little was within striking distance of its first win of the season at halftime of Saturday’s game, down only one touchdown to Oxford Hills. Then the Vikings dominated the second half, and the Red Eddies dropped to 0-5.

John Shea of Edward Little High School dives for more yardage following a first-half catch against Oxford Hills on Saturday. Oxford Hills’ defenders on the play are Addison Brown, left, Isaiah Oufiero and Ty LeBlond. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal Buy this Photo

Edward Little coach Dave Sterling was ready to look through the windshield after the game, rather than the rearview mirror.

“We’re on to Bangor. We got a big week ahead of us,” Sterling said. “We’ll watch film Monday, we’ll have a good week of practice. Guys really have understood what we’re trying to achieve now, and what we can do as a team, and we’ll be good. We’ll be good this week.”

The Red Eddies will welcome to Walton Field a Rams team that is 2-3, but both those wins came against Class B opponents that each only have one win. EL’s first five opponents have a combined 20 record of 20-5.

If ever there was a week to win …