Lisbon football players left school a few minutes early Thursday afternoon and boarded a bus for Bates College.

The game plan: Practice on the Bobcats’ new artificial turf at Garcelon Field to simulate the footing in Friday night’s Western Class C semifinal at Yarmouth.

“It helps us prepare a lot better than running on a muddy field at Lisbon,.” quarterback and linebacker Zack Splude said.

Rehearsing the reigning state champions’ speed, deception and explosiveness after tonight’s 7 p.m. kickoff? Well, that’s a different story.

Co-owners of the longest winning streak in the state at 21 games, No. 1 Yarmouth has outscored its nine opponents 373-52. Tucked into the middle of that roll through regular-season play was a 34-6 home rout of No. 4 Lisbon in Week 5.

Anders Overhaug scored all five touchdowns that night for the Clippers. And the Greyhounds had just as much difficulty stopping wingback Caleb Uhl and fullback Nik Pelletier that night. The three Yarmouth backs combined for nearly 400 yards.

“They offer challenges all the way across the board. I think the biggest is their speed, and on their turf it makes it that much harder,” Lisbon coach Dick Mynahan said. “One of the things we’ve been trying to emphasize is our angles of pursuit, because it’s easy to misjudge that.”

Yarmouth’s Wing-T confronts Lisbon with a crowded house and pesky misdirection.

Directing traffic for the Clippers is sophomore QB Brady Neujahr, whose ability to either tuck and run or throw downfield makes Yarmouth that much more dangerous.

“He’s probably the fastest guy on the team,” Yarmouth coach Jim Hartman said.

Lisbon (7-2) often had trouble picking up which Yarmouth runner got the ball in the first meeting.

The Greyhounds will still be relying on their instincts as much as their eyes, but the coach hopes this time it will be more of an educated guess.

“Their quarterback hides that ball. It’s either one play or the other, and he does a really good job of disguising it. It’s hard to read when you’ve got guys in front of you and around,” Mynahan said. “You sometimes have to go to the person that you think has the ball. That’s what we’ve done in the past and what we’re going to try to do again.”

Six sacks and two interceptions accelerated the Greyhounds’ undoing in the September meeting.

Lisbon’s offense has changed, however, with Splude taking most of the snaps at center after lining up at halfback in the first visit to Yarmouth.

Splude ran for two fourth-quarter touchdowns and threw another to Quincy Thompson in Saturday’s rally to a 34-22 quarterfinal victory over Winslow.

“We’ve got some different offense in this time around that we hope will be more physical,” Mynahan said. “Our backs have been impressive the past couple of games going straight ahead. The last time we tried to go around (Yarmouth). This time we’re going to go at them. It’s not going to be easy.”

Special teams have been a factor for Lisbon in recent games. The Greyhounds blocked a punt and recovered an inside kick to turn the tide in a 27-7 triumph at Winthrop.

Kick and punt returns by Mason Haley and Jordon Torres provided prime field position against Winslow.

Any such momentum swings that would help Lisbon sustain drives would be a big boost.

“We need to keep them off the field and keep them from running the counters and reverse plays that hurt a lot of teams,” Splude said. “We need to hold the ball longer and put it to them and make sure they don’t put it to us.”

Yarmouth has won 29 of its last 30 games since September 2009, including four straight over Lisbon.

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