Sharon held what looked like a comfortable lead.

By BILL ALBRIGHT

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

GROVE CITY, Pa. — For the second week in a row, Grove City High found a way to turn what appeared to be a loss into an exciting win.

On the other side of the field, for the second time in three weeks, the Sharon Tigers saw an apparent victory turn into a sour loss.

After the two teams slugged it out with each other in a game that featured big plays and a lot of turnovers, the Eagles walked off the field with a 42-36 victory over the Tigers in double overtime.

“Last week the kids pulled one out and tonight, they did it again,” said Grove City coach Jeff Bell. “That [Sharon] is a good football team, and I am sure we will see them again somewhere down the road. My hat goes off to our coaching staff because they had us well prepared for most of the things they did tonight.”

With Sharon holding what appeared to be a comfortable 29-19 lead with less than seven minutes remaining in regulation, the Eagles came back to tie the game on a 45-yard TD pass from quarterback Mike Burk to Dwayne Martin and a 31-yard field goal by Jason Ferderber with three seconds remaining.

Ferderber’s field goal was the first of his career since taking over for injured Bobby Kowalsky.

“I wasn’t really nervous because I didn’t have a chance to get nervous,” said Ferderber. “But it goes to the whole team because they got the good field position, we got the snap and we got the hold. I am just one part of the whole scheme of things.”

In the first overtime, Grove City scored first on a five-yard run by Chris Clark, but Sharon answered when Billy Altman took a pitch from quarterback Todd Rearick and swept his left end for the score.

In the second extra period, after a lost fumble by Sharon, Martin made good on the 10-yard pass from Burk for his second TD reception and the game-winner.

The game featured a personal duel between two outstanding running backs in Grove City’s Chris Clark and Altman. Clark finished with 238 yards on 22 carries good for three scores, while Altman also finished with an outstanding game with 212 yards on 21 tries while scoring twice.

“He [Altman] had an outstanding game, but all of our kids played their hearts out,” said Sharon coach Bob Fromm. “Our kids faced a lot of adversity throughout the whole game tonight, but even when they us down, we responded by smacking them in the mouth. They stepped up like young men and played their hearts out.”

After Sharon scored first on a 67-yard run by Altman, the Eagles came back to score three unanswered touchdowns. Clark did all of the Grove City scoring as he tallied touchdowns on runs of three and 28 yards before taking a recovered fumble 79 yards to the house.

With the Eagles holding the 19-7 lead, Sharon came back to score with only 29 seconds left before halftime on a one-yard run by Todd Rearick before they added a pair of scores late in the third period and early in the fourth to take the 29-19 lead.

Although the Tigers built up the 10-point lead, they did it while committing five turnovers. However, the sixth and most costly miscue came in overtime that stopped their scoring opportunity and eventually led to the Grove City win.

“We had the game won, but we didn’t play well coming down the stretch,” Fromm. “We gave up some big plays, but when I look at the whole game, we certainly turned the ball way too much to win. Any way you look at it, we just let it get away from us.”