Athens Falls in Overtime Thriller to Romeo, 34-31

There were a lot of high school playoff games on Friday night, but not many of them were more exciting or dramatic than the one at .

Athens and Romeo went to five overtimes where a 31-yard field goal from Rasmus Skovborg gave the Bulldogs a 34-31 win.   

“Come on, you go to toe-to-toe with a football team like that and then we go into five overtimes with these guys, that was amazing,” Red Hawks coach Josh Heppner said.

The teams exchanged the lead five times in overtime. Both offenses thrived with a short field and each scored touchdowns on three of the first four possessions in extra time.

It was a fumble in the fifth overtime that sealed the Red Hawks' fate.

Athens quarterback Ben Bartnowak went to hand off the ball and there was a miscommunication on the exchange. Both Lonnie Bolden and Sam Haskell went for the football and it fell to the ground.

“Simple miscue,” Heppner said. “But there wasn’t one single thing. We had multiple times during the game where we could’ve put something together and we shot ourselves in the foot.”

Romeo ran the ball five yards on first down to set up a 21-yard field goal attempt. An illegal procedure penalty pushed the Bulldogs back five yards to make the kick a little more dramatic. Skovborg was still able to kick it through and end Athens' season.

It wasn’t until overtime where things turned into a shootout; most of the game was actually a defensive battle.

Romeo scored a touchdown on its first possession of the game and didn’t get back in the end zone until the first overtime. Zack Williams' 24-yard run with 7:57 left in the first quarter gave the Bulldogs an early 7-0 lead.

In the first half, Athens only managed 69 yards and six first downs. It wasn’t much better in the third quarter when the offense had as many offsides penalties – two – as it did first downs. 

“It was playoff jitters,” Heppner said. “These guys have never been in this kind of situation before, sometimes the emotion gets the little bit of the best of you. We went back to our bread and butter. We finally got our misdirection stuff going, our outside veer stuff going. Stopped trying to be cut and went back to our basics.”

An interception at the start of the fourth quarter by Antonio Mitchell gave Athens the spark it needed.

The offense went 53 yards down the field in eight plays. Bolden capped off the drive with a 2-yard touchdown run to tie the game 7-7 with 8:17 left in the game.

Bolden wasn’t done making big plays. He came up with the Red Hawks' second interception on Romeo’s ensuing drive. He made a leaping catch on a pass that looked like it was headed out of bounds.

Athens regained possession with 5:30 remaining in regulation. The offense moved the ball down to the 32-yard line where the drive stalled. Sandy Mouch attempted a 39-yard field goal with 1:17 left on the clock that fell about three yards short.

“He just didn't get the protection he needed,” Heppner said. “They got a little too much pressure. On a normal day we make that happen.”

The loss ended an impressive run by an Athens team that most people outside the program didn’t think would be a playoff team.

After the game, Heppner thanked his seniors for helping the school make the playoffs for the first time since 2004 and winning more games this season (seven) than it did the previous two years combined.  

“I’ll forever be in debt to these seniors and what they’ve done for this program,” Heppner said. “I can’t thank them enough. It’s up to our underclassman now, to take this and run with it. We should be in the playoffs every year. We’ve proven that we can do that and it’s our job to continue to strive for that."