ATTICA — If Seneca East has a chance to win the game at the end, it will. It has proven it over and over again.
For the second week in a row, the Tigers won on the last play of the game, with Blake Foos throwing a 17-yard touchdown pass to Korbin Beamer for a 32-31 victory against Wynford on Friday night at Seneca East.
A week after Foos scored the winning touchdown on a quarterback sneak with one second left against Mohawk, the Tigers again were down to their final play, trailing 31-26. Foos threw a perfect fade down the right sideline and hit Beamer in stride.
“If you think you can, you can,” Seneca East coach Ed Phillips said. “When we get in that position right now, we think we can. They almost like it. I don’t like it. It’s pretty stressful, but when we had a minute and half, and we had a good position on the kick return I really thought, ‘Man we can do this.’ When we got lined up there, we thought we could get the fade to Korbin, and we sure did.”
In a back-and-forth game, Wynford took the lead on an Anthony Evans 4-yard touchdown run with 1:28 remaining, but it was just enough time for Seneca East to answer back.
The Tigers (7-2, 5-1 Northern 10 Athletic Conference) got possession at their own 41-yard line after a short kickoff. Kalen Skidmore sacked Foos, and after an incompletion, Seneca East faced a third-and-16. Foos scrambled for all but one yard, and he converted a fourth down with a 2-yard run into Wynford territory.
Passes of 11 and 16 yards advanced the ball to the Royals’ 21-yard line, and an offsides penalty got the Tigers 5 yards closer before the final play that began with four seconds on the clock. After using his final timeout, Phillips knew just what play he wanted.
“We do ball drills every day, and we practice that play a lot,” he said. “In practice, Korbin made that catch a couple days ago right there. It was just like practice. Perfect ball, perfect route, perfect catch. It was something.”
Kaiden Blair had a career game for Wynford (2-6, 2-4 N10) with 271 yards and four touchdowns on 37 carries, but it was not enough for the Royals.
“Our guys, they fought hard,” Wynford coach Cyle Skidmore said. “Seneca East just came up and made a play and that was the end of the game. I thought our guys battled; it just didn’t come out the way we wanted to.”
The teams traded touchdowns until the fourth quarter when Wynford scored two in a row. Blair scored on a 13-yard run with 8:41 remaining, but the extra point was wide, leaving the Royals trailing by a point.
After a Seneca East punt, the Royals had six minutes to get a go-ahead score. They converted a fourth-and-1 with a quarterback sneak, and on the next play, Evans broke free for a 58-yard run to the Tigers’ 20 yard-line. Wynford, which did not complete a pass in the game, handed the ball to Blair five straight times and forced Seneca East to use two timeouts to conserve clock in case Wynford scored, and it did on third-and-goal.
“We tried to run the clock down,” Skidmore said. “At the end of the day we had to score, we had to get a touchdown. Like I said, it didn’t go our way, and their players just made a really good play there at the very end of the game.”
Wynford’s conversion pass failed, giving Seneca East the opportunity to win without an extra point when it answered.
Seneca East began the game with Foos scoring on a 5-yard run, but Wynford came back with a touchdown on its first play from scrimmage, a 55-yard run by Blair in which he broke tackles all the way down the field.
Foos scored on a 20-yard run before the end of the first quarter, and Wynford came back with a Blair 6-yard touchdown run. After Foos threw a 53-yard touchdown pass to Bryler Beamer, defensive lineman Kenneth “KJ” Kotalik intercepted a screen pass and returned it to the Seneca East 13-yard line, leading to a Blair 8-yard touchdown. For a second time, Wynford’s extra point try went off the upright, leaving the Royals ahead just one, 19-18, just before halftime.
A 4-yard touchdown run by Foos put the Tigers back in front with 2:05 left in the third quarter. He added a key two-point conversion run that made it 26-19.
With Evans running 10 times for 83 yards in addition to Blair’s big game on the ground, the Royals racked up 349 yards rushing on 52 carries.
“Kaiden Blair had a heck of a game,” coach Skidmore said. “That also tells me the offensive line blocked really hard, but Kaiden Blair, he stepped up today, that’s for sure. He put us in a position to be really good for this game, to be successful tonight.”
Foos did the same for Seneca East. He completed 19 of 32 passes for 184 yards and two touchdowns and ran the ball 25 times for 161 yards and two more scores. Austin Perry made 11 receptions for 80 yards.
Seneca East also beat Upper Sandusky earlier in the season with a late touchdown and has two other victories in one-score games. It has put the Tigers in position to share the N10 title if they can upset Carey next week.
“We’re fortunate, it’s true, but when you practice and work as hard as the kids do and believe in each other and expect it, that’s how it happens,” Phillips said. “If you don’t believe in each other, if you don’t have faith that the guy is going to make the play, it ain’t going to happen. These kids believe in each other and have faith in each other and that’s why this happened.”
The Royals wrap up their season at 7 p.m. Friday at Upper Sandusky.
Box score
Wynford 6 13 0 12 — 31
Seneca East 12 6 8 6 — 32
Score by quarters
First quarter
SE — Foos 5 run (kick blocked) 9:30.
W — Blair 55 run (kick failed) 9:17.
SE — Foos 20-yard run (pass failed) 5:10.
Second quarter
W — Blair 6 run (Hulsmeyer kick) 11:19.
SE — B. Beamer 53 pass from Foos (pass failed) 6:26.
W — Blair 8 run (kick failed) 2:38.
Third quarter
SE — Foos 4 run (Foos run) 2:05.
Fourth quarter
W — Blair 13 run (kick failed) 8:41.
W — Evans 4 run (pass failed) 1:28.
SE — K. Beamer 16 pass from Foos, 0:00.
Individual statistics
Passing
Wynford: Warren 0-4-0 0.
Seneca East: Foos 19-32-2 184 yards, Heibertshausen 0-1-0 0.
Rushing
Wynford: Blair 37-271, Evans 10-83, Keith 2-3, Team 1-(minus 1), Warren 2-(minus 7).
Seneca East: Foos 25-161, Dixon 4-22, Heibertshausen 1-11, Fritz 1-1, Perry 1-1.
Receiving
Wynford: none.
Seneca East: Perry 11-80, Martin 2-11, Heibertshausen 2-5, B. Beamer 1-53, K. Beamer 1-16, Fritz 1-16, Dixon 1-3.
Team statistics
W SE
First downs 16 20
Rushing yards 52-349 32-196
Passing yards 0 184
Passes 0-4-0 19-33-2
Fumbles-lost 2-0 2-1
Punts 5-35.6 3-36.7
Penalties 8-73 4-30