Any time two football teams get together and the points fly, the saying goes that the side that has the ball last is the one that ends up winning.
Late in Saturday’s Section III Class D quarterfinal, Bishop Ludden was hoping that adage would prove true. The Gaelic Knights trailed Dolgeville by six, but had the ball and was at midfield, driving toward a possible tying score in a game where neither defense had shown much of a capacity to slow anything down.
Just at the wrong time, though, a defense did make a stop – and because of that, Ludden lost, 48-42, to the Blue Devils, who advanced to face Sandy Creek in the semifinals as the Gaelic Knights’ season concluded with a 5-3 record.
Ludden found itself tied, 42-42, as Dolgeville again moved the ball down the field late in the fourth quarter, only to get slowed down and face a fourth down at the Gaelic Knights’ 46-yard line with three minutes to play.
The Blue Devils lined up in punt formation – but instead of trying to pin the Gaelic Knights deep in its own end, Chase Doxtader took the snap and took off, not stopping until he had found the end zone with 2:42 left. it capped a day where he gained 286 yards on the ground and scored five times.
Though Dolgeville missed the two-point conversion, it was back in front, and now Ludden had to put together one more scoring march through a field long turned to mud thanks to all the rain that had fallen since Thursday.
That drive did reach midfield, thanks to a pass from Sh’ikem Lee to Joe Connor, but an eight-yard loss, combined with a false start, pushed Ludden back, and though it did get back to a fourth-and-five, Lee faced Dolgeville pressure and, hurried, threw it incomplete, causing a turnover on downs that allowed the Blue Dvevils to run out the clock.
A pattern that lasted all game was established in the first half. Dolgeville would score, Ludden would answer, and it happened twice to make it 14-14 midway through the second quarter as Lee ran eight yards for one TD and threw a 48-yard scoring pass to Joe Connor.
Though Dolgeviille scored twice late in the half to take a 28-14 lead, Ludden again fought back, scoring with 19 seconds left to make it 28-21 at intermission and then, early in the third quarter, tying it with a drive that Lee capped with a five-yard strike to Connor.
Trailing again 36-28 thanks to Doxtader’s fourth TD on a five-yard run, Ludden erased it when Lee’s kick return set up his own eight-yard TD pass to Se’Vaughn Williams on the first play of the fourth quarter and again the two-point conversion was successful.
With 9:02 left, the Blue Devils again went in front, 42-36, on Cole Harlow’s three-yard run, his second TD in a game where he gained 154 yards on the ground. Less than three minutes later, Ludden pulled even again, 42-42, its fourth comeback of the game, as Lee found Keandre Sanders in the end zone from 14 yards out.
However, a fifth was required, and the Gaelic Knights couldn’t pull it off, despite Lee completing 17 of 28 passes for 274 yards, with Connor accumulating 170 receiving yards on six catches. Sanders had eight catches for 93 yards.
