North Olmsted topples Avon Lake in OT, 21-14

NORTH OLMSTED, OHIO– The North Olmsted Eagles beat the Avon Lake Shoremen 21-14 in an overtime thriller.

On Avon Lake’s first drive, the Shoremen put together an impressive drive, but fumbled it at the North Olmsted 14-yard line and it was recovered by the Eagles.

North Olmsted little going on their opening drive and were forced to punt.

Avon Lake blocked the punt and took over at the North Olmsted 20-yard line.

The Shoremen wasted little time as Jack Summers ran in a Shoremen score on the first play of the drive.

Late in the first half, Avon Lake was trying to march down the field for a score, electing not to run the clock out.

Quarterback Jack Mikolich had the ball stripped from him, and it was recovered by the Eagles.

North Olmsted started off the drive at the Shoremen 26-yard line with 52 seconds remaining in the first half.

The Eagles scored with 2 seconds left in the half on a touchdown pass from Sean Elbin to Sean Conroy from eight yards out.

Early in the second half, Avon Lake marched the ball all the way down to the Eagle eight-yard line when they fumbled, and yet again, the ball was recovered by North Olmsted.

Starting quarterback Sean Elbin did not come out to start the second half, and Liam Fay took the field to lead the Eagles.

After a lengthy drive, Darren Anders ran it in for a touchdown from 23 yards out to take a 14-7 lead.

Anders finished with 96 yards on just 13 carries battling through injuries all night.

“This was an awesome win,” said Anders.“It’s always great to come out here and beat a team like Avon Lake. They’re our rivals, we were looking forward to this game so much and I can’t believe we pulled through. It was awesome, we knew we could win if we worked hard enough which we did”

Avon Lake looked like they were well on their way to tying up the score, but the Shoremen fumbled deep inside of North Olmsted territory, this time at the three-yard line.

Sean Conroy rushed for 41 yards on the drive with Anders injured, but the Eagles failed to score.

The Eagles kept the lead and it looked like they had sealed the deal when Darren Anders intercepted a pass from Jack Mikolich.

The Eagles could not get a first down and lined up to punt with 30 seconds to go.

The snap went over Punter Owen Juhn’s head and the Shoremen took over at the Eagle’s 32-yard line.

Avon Lake capped off the drive with a touchdown pass with eight seconds remaining in regulation to send the game to overtime.

On fourth and seven in OT, the Eagles passed the ball and Avon Lake was called for pass interference giving the Eagles new life.

On second and goal from the nine-yard line, Liam Fay ran in a quarterback draw to take the lead, 21-14.

After a pass interference call on third and seven, the Shoremen got the ball at the seven-yard line.

After a carry from Konner Riggs and two incomplete passes from Mikolich it was fourth and goal at the seven.

Mikolich completed his pass and his receiver was stopped inches shy of the end zone to preserve a North Olmsted victory.

The Eagles improve to 2-0 and will take on a 2-0 Midview team next week. Avon Lake falls to 1-1, and will take on Avon next week, who is 2-0.

PLAYER OF THE GAME:

Liam Fay stepped up big when starting quarterback Sean Elbin went down with an injury. He ran in what would end up being the game winning score.

BOX SCORE:

  1    2    3    4    OT   F

AL   7    0    0    7    0      14

NO   0   7     7    0    7     21