The Edgewood Bulldogs came out on top in this year’s dogfight with the Tioga Bulldogs, winning 37-34 and sending Tioga home with their second loss of the season.
Tioga won in a nail-biter last season, but Edgewood survived a second-half comeback in a shootout where both teams combined for over 900 yards of total offense and 10 touchdowns.
“Defense played well, and our kids fought hard, especially in the second half,” said Tioga athletic director and head football coach Zach Birdwell. “We fixed a lot of things that we saw on film that needed to be fixed from Week 1 and opened up a whole lot of new things that we need to get fixed, rolling into this next week.”
Edgewood found the end zone first, with quarterback Trevor Golightly connecting with receiver Tony Smith for a 39yard touchdown pass, putting Edgewood up 7-0 in the first quarter.
Tioga responded with a 10-play drive capped with a 5-yard rushing touchdown from utility player Greeley McAden.
McAden followed his touchdown run with a successful two-point conversion, giving Tioga an 8-7 lead at the end of the first quarter.
Edgewood moved back in front after receiver Treston Turner snagged a pass
See DOGS on Page 5B from Golightly and dove into the end zone, sending the two teams into the halftime locker room up 14-8.
Golightly added Edgewood’s third touchdown of the game with a shovel pass to running back Lucas Pippin, extending Edgewood’s lead to 21-8.
Tioga answered when McAden connected with receiver Jaxson Hurst on a flea-flicker pass for a 65yard touchdown, making it a one-possession game.
Pippin picked up his second touchdown of the night when he sliced through Tioga’s defense from 9 yards out, putting Edgewood back up 29-16 after a successful two-point conversion.
Two plays after an interception by the Edgewood defense, Smith took a screen 22 yards for a touchdown, putting Edgewood up 37-16 in the third quarter.
Tioga stormed back with 18 unanswered points in the fourth quarter behind McAden connecting with receivers Justin Arrington and Jake David for 65-yard and 24-yard touchdown passes and collecting his second rushing score, making it a 3-point game.
Tioga found itself in the red zone with nine seconds left on the clock with a chance to take the lead, but the game ended after the game officials ruled time expired after McAden was ruled down short of the end zone on the final play.
Birdwell said he alerted the sideline official he wanted to call a timeout if Tioga didn’t score on the play.
After McAden was ruled short of the end zone, the sideline official signaled for the timeout with four seconds left on the clock, but a different official signaled that time had expired, and after a brief meeting at midfield, the timeout was rescinded, and the game was ruled to be over.
“I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” Birdwell said. “The referees have an extremely hard job, and I’m not ever one to call them out, but it’s the most unfortunate ending to a game I’ve ever seen. … To rob our kids of a chance to run a last play to potentially win the game from the inch yard line, it’s unfortunate for our kids, but at the end of the day, we had a lot of other chances to score points.”
Despite the loss, Birdwell said he was proud of the resilience his team demonstrated fighting their way back into the game after being down by 21 points in the fourth quarter.
“We’re a program where it doesn’t matter if we’re down by 50 or up by 50, we have a standard to meet, and our kids are going to meet it, and I thought they did a good job with that in the second half,” he said. “… We knew it would be a journey finding our identity offensively once Cole [Boyd] went down, but we found some things in that second half, and I’m proud of the kids for their fight. The execution is going to come with time.”
