TURNER — When Leavitt coach Mike Hathaway sent his kicker out, ostensibly to tie Friday night’s Pine Tree Conference Class B championship and send it into a third overtime, Jordan Hersom couldn’t bare to watch. Jake Ouellette couldn’t stand the idea of going the safe route.

But Hathaway had a surprise for Hersom and Ouellette. And especially for Mt. Blue.

First he called a timeout, then he had his offense gather around him. He had already decided, if the opportunity arose, to go for the win with a two-point conversion. Sending the kicker out was merely a ruse.

“I had in my mind that we were going to go for it,” Hathaway said. “I decided, like, (Thursday). I told somebody if it came down to that, we felt like we’ve got good players and we go for two. I just thought if we sent (the kicking team) out, they might be thinking extra point and they might not be spending as much time in their huddle drawing up a defense for something.”

“I was pumped. I wanted to go for two in the first place,” Ouellette said. “I wanted to get the win. Win and get out of here.”

That’s just what the Hornets did. Hersom flipped a shovel pass to Ouellette, the left side of the offensive line opened a huge hole, and No. 1 Leavitt won its third consecutive Eastern B title with a dramatic 22-21 victory over No. 2 Mt. Blue.

“It was a great call by Coach,” Hersom said. “He drew it up perfectly and we executed it well enough to punch it in.”

“I like that shovel play,” Hathaway said. “We ran it in the first overtime and Ian (Durgin) had good yards and they stripped it. I just thought the way their ends were playing, if Jordan attacked them really, really hard, they’d widen and we could just shovel it underneath.”

The strip of Durgin nearly doomed the Hornets (11-0), who had the ball to start the first overtime and turned it over on the first play. Mt. Blue (9-2) took its turn from the 10 yard line and drove to the 2 on runs by Jordan Whitney and Izaiha Tracy. On 3rd and goal, Whitney turned to hand the ball again to Tracy, but he slipped and collided with the senior tailback and the ball went to the ground, where Jake Posik pounced on it for Leavitt.

“We had ’22 rip’ for a touchdown. Unfortunately, we slipped, or we win it in the first overtime,” Mt. Blue coach Gary Parlin said.

Tracy had plenty of firm footing to start the second OT. He ran for six yards on first down, then ran four more off right tackle  for the touchdown. Shawn Keach’s extra point put the Cougars up, 21-14.

Leavitt needed only one play to answer the touchdown. Hersom (7-for-12, 129 yards, TD, INT) found Brian Bedard, who caught the ball at the 3, then turned inside as the Cougars’ defensive back slipped and scored to make it 21-20, setting up the game-ending play.

Leavitt’s 33rd consecutive PTC victory was even more of a defensive battle than its 22-17 win over the Cougars on Oct. 7. The Hornets limited Mt. Blue to 170 total yards and five first downs. The Cougars shut down Leavitt’s running game after the first quarter.

“We started out with a few guys trying to do too much,” Parlin said. “Once they started playing their assignments, we shut down the run a little bit.”

With the defenses dominating, turnovers and special teams were key. Levi Morin’s interception of Whitney (10-for-20, 66 yards, TD, INT) on Mt. Blue’s second possession set up the Hornets at the Cougar 21. On 4th and inches from the 2, Hersom ran up the middle to put them up 7-0.

Midway through the second quarter, a bad snap and a sack by Chad Luker pushed Leavitt back deep in its own end, and Ouellette’s 22-yard punt allowed the Cougars to start at Leavitt’s 37. After converting on 4th and 1, the Cougars went for it again on 4th and 9 from the 20 and Whitney connected with Cam Sennick on a post pattern in the end zone. Keach’s kick tied it at 7-7, which is where it stood at halftime.

Another defensive stand and another short punt preceded the Cougars’ go-ahead touchdown. Starting at Leavitt’s 30, Eric Berry’s 22-yard run set up Whitney’s 1-yard touchdown that made it 14-7 with 7:22 left in the third quarter.

An alert Berry recovered the ensuing kickoff at Leavitt’s 19 after the Hornets failed to pick it up. But a holding call and three Whitney incompletions squashed that threat.

“That was huge,” Hathaway said. “I thought our defense played well tonight. That’s a tough offense to defend. It was supposed to be one of those games with two high-powered offenses, but those are two damned good defenses.”

The Hornets built on the momentum of that defensive stop by driving 87 yards in 14 plays, tying the game on the first play of the fourth quarter with Ouellette’s two-yard run out of the “wildcat” formation.

“It could have gone either way. It really could have. We could have been on the other side of that,” Hersom said. “We’re just fortunate enough to pull this out. I feel bad for the Mt. Blue kids. They played their hearts out.”

“It’s a game that you want no one to lose,” he added.

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