By Tom Williams

williams@vindy.com

LISBON

After an extremely sloppy first half, the Lisbon High football team rebounded by taking advantage of a golden opportunity for Thursday’s 13-12 victory over Leetonia.

Late in the game, the Blue Devils trailed 12-6 and faced fourth-and-4 at the Leetonia 7. Quarterback Josh Liberati’s pass into the end zone deflected off receiver Josh Craig’s hands into the air. As the ball descended, Leetonia defender Trent Ferry smacked into Craig.

The personal foul penalty gave the Blue Devils first-and-goal at the 3. Two plays later, Liberati scored from the 2 and Jannik Schmidt’s conversion kick — the first for the German exchange student — was the margin of victory in the 35th (approximately) Spaghetti Bowl.

Leetonia coach Matt Altomare said the officials eventually ruled that Ferry’s shoulder pads-to-shoulder pads hit was too high.

“First they said it was late, then they said it was too high,” Altomare said. “It was a bang-bang play, they’ve got to go with what they saw. Trent is the last kid who is going to hit somebody late.

“It was a tough call.”

Trailing 12-0 at halftime, the Blue Devils rallied by making big plays. On the go-ahead drive, Lisbon coach Jim Tsilimos dug into his bag of tricks for a fleaflicker pass caught by receiver Jagr Groubert at the Leetonia 13 for a 36-yard gain.

On the play, running back Brandon Barnes took the handoff, stopped at the line of scrimmage and flipped the ball back to Liberati who threw a sideline pass.

“Josh threw it a little behind me, but that’s all right,” Groubert said. “We ran it very well practice so I had high hopes.”

After leaping for the reception, Groubert said he lost control of the ball as he fell to the ground after being pushed.

“It was in my chest and when I brought it down to the ground, I lost control but I brought i back in,” Groubert said. “It was a clean catch.”

Tsilimos said he didn’t feel the call was that big of gamble.

“We prepared for it,” Tsilimos said. “It wasn’t like a Hail Mary at the end of a game. It was in our gameplan because Brandon has that target on his back. As much as we run the ball, by the play-action we were hoping they were going to bite.”

The Bears weren’t finished. On their next drive, Blue Devils defensive back Austin Rutecki intercepted a Ferry pass at midfield.

After a Lisbon punt, the Bears drove to the Lisbon 7. On the next play, Ferry was stopped at the line and Rutecki stripped the ball. Groubert pounced on it to seal the win.

“It was overwhelming, I don’t have words for it,” Groubert said of the late stop.

Leetonia wasted no time grabbing the lead. On their first possession, the Bears needed just four plays to score. Zack Van Giesen caught a screen pass from Ferry and raced 25 yards for a 6-0 lead.

Later, the Bears drove 77 yards on 11 plays. Van Giesen’s 2-yard TD run made it 12-0.

The Blue Devils climbed back into the game on their second possession of the third quarter. They marched 71 yards on five plays. One was a 19-yard run by Barnes. The big one was Liberati’s 35-yard touchdown pass that Groubert caught falling into the end zone.