WILD RIDE: Brookville Drives for Winning TD Late to Down Gritty Karns City, 42-41

KANE, Pa. (EYT/D9) — Gabe Bowley has seen a lot of football throughout his life.

He has rarely seen anything like this.

His Brookville football team let Karns City score a touchdown late, then drove the length of the field for the winning score on a 1-yard pass from Charlie Krug to Jack Pete with 24 seconds remaining for a wild 42-41 win at Kane on Friday night in the District 9 Class 2A semifinals.

(Pictured above, Brookville’s Charlie Krug threw five touchdowns passes in a wild playoff win for the Raiders)

Bowley had just as much admiration for his opponent as he did for his own players, who answered gut check after gut check in a back-and-forth game with more momentum swings than scores.

“By the skin of our teeth,” Bowley said. “It was a beautiful game because Karns City played with so much heart and determination and just drive. I mean, they played well enough to win a football game.”

Brookville Area High School sports coverage on Explore and D9Sports.com is brought to you by Redbank Chevrolet and DuBrook.

Bowley and his defense knew what was coming from the Gremlins, who for three weeks now have been without a quarterback, instead relying on their bevy of bruising backs to run plays from the wildcat — or “Hogs” set as they call it — and at times with back Braden Slater under center.

Didn’t matter. Karns City still rushed for 493 yards.

Brookville got what it wanted, jumping out to a 14-0 lead just a little more than three minutes into the game. Normally, that would be an early knockout for a team as run-dependent as Karns City.

Nope.

The Gremlins responded with 21 unanswered points, continuing to pound the ball with big backs Luke Cramer and Hunter Scherer.

Cramer finished the night with 189 yards rushing on 29 carries and two touchdowns; Scherer had 160 yards on 22 carries and two scores, including a 54-yard run on the final play of the half that gave Karns City a 28-21 lead at the break.

That came just nine seconds after Pete caught the first of his three TD passes from Krug to tie the game.

“They ran an option and the quarterback kept it and took it to the house,” Bowley said. “I didn’t think that was possible running the football with three seconds left in the half.”

It set up an equally wild final two quarters.

Hayden Freeman, who also had a huge night, caught a 17-yard scoring pass from Krug to tie the game again at 28-28.

Then Karns City reached into a bag of tricks.

Cramer hit Troy Nagel for a 54-yard touchdown on the first play of the fourth quarter to put the Gremlins up again, 35-28.

Karns City threw just two passes in the game with Cramer connecting for the Gremlins’ second completed pass in three weeks.

Jack Pete caught his third TD of the night, hauling in a short pass, breaking tackles and making people miss on the way to a 62-yard score with 6:54 remaining.

Karns City answered with a long drive inside the 5 with less than two minutes on the clock. Bowley and his staff decided to let the Gremlins score to get the ball back and score on their own.

Cramer obliged with a 4-yard run, but the point after was missed.

“They could have easily just run the clock down and maybe make a field goal with no time left to win,” Bowley said. “So we made the decision to try to let them score and they did. We went down and answered and made the extra point.”

Steven Pyler may have been the most clutch player of all for Brookville. A soccer player, he was 6-of-6 on extra points.

And one point was all it took.

“They had very few negative plays,” Bowley said of Karns City. “That’s exactly Karns City football. That’s what makes you nervous about playing them. They’re just a physical, well-coached, determined, hard-nosed football team and you respect them for it.”

Krug was 17-of-38 for 283 yards and five touchdown passes.

Pete had eight receptions for 151 and Freeman had three catches for 81 yards.

Tony Ceriani rushed for 90 yards to lead the Raiders (9-2), who will now face 10-0 Central Clarion next week for the D9 Class 2A title.

It was the ninth consecutive win for Brookville, which lost to Central Clarion in the season-opener.

“Kudos to our guys,” Bowley said. “I felt like there were two or three times that we could have packed in it and said, ‘You know what, that’s it.’ They didn’t and they just kept fighting. They never got too high. They never got too low. They just kind of stayed level and stayed the path and believed in themselves.”

Brookville Area High School sports coverage on Explore and D9Sports.com is brought to you by Redbank Chevrolet and DuBrook.