Nobody can accuse Cape Central or Belleville Althoff of playing boring football this season.
More often than not, the games these teams play go down to the wire, and so it was last night at Houck Stadium.
Althoff charged up its running game at halftime and edged Central 23-20 in an overtime cliffhanger on Central's Homecoming night.
Adam Emig, who had missed a 27-yard field goal attempt with 54 seconds left in the game, booted a 29-yarder following the second drive of overtime to win it for Althoff (2-4).
Cape Central's Brian Emmendorfer had missed a 29-yarder following the initial drive of OT.
"I really wasn't that nervous," said Emig, who had missed some other crucial field goals earlier this season. "The ones I missed, I didn't follow through. I followed through on this one, and it went right down the middle."
Central led 12-6 at halftime, scoring on Emmanuel Harris' 17-yard run with 9:18 left in the first quarter and a 75-yard touchdown pass from Frank McGinty to Chris Allen with 1:47 left in the opening quarter.
A 28-yard pass from Dan Piel to Jason Diekemper cut Central's lead in half with 8:24 left in the half.
Central had an opportunity to score again before halftime, but failed on a fourth-and-2 from Althoff's 10-yard line and turned the ball over on downs.
Other than a few plays, Althoff kept Central's vaunted passing game in check. McGinty was 8-for-21 for 150 yards.
"Our defense kind of bent, but overall it played pretty well," said Crusaders coach Glenn Schott. "We kept changing our looks, playing some man, some zone. We were worried about (Central's passing game). That McGinty can throw."
Another touchdown pass from Piel to Diekemper and Emig's extra point gave Althoff a 13-12 lead with 5:13 left in the third quarter.
Central reclaimed the lead with 11:22 left in regulation on a 1-yard run by Harris, who finished with 121 yards on 14 carries.
"I give all the credit to my line," Harris said. "They were opening some big holes. I think we kind of straightened some things out in our running game."
But Althoff, with 5-foot-8, 200-pound power back Clyde Howard blowing through the Central defense in the second half, tied the game with 8:52 left on an 18-yard quarterback sneak by Piel.
"Our coaches picked up something at halftime," Schott said. "and we were able to get Clyde to the outside and off tackle away from our strength."
Howard finished with 165 yards on 28 carries.
"I was just glad to get a chance to go to overtime," Howard said. "We've been coming out on the other end of games like this."
Central dropped to 2-3.
"We made some mistakes that hurt us," Harris said. "It's hard to lose like this, but we still have five games to go, and if we can get focused we can win them."
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