Austin Northeast and Austin Travis battled in a roller coaster of a game with key playoff implications last Thursday night. Northeast struck first as running back Markell Joiner took a handoff to the left, found a hole, cut up, and raced off for a 49-yard touchdown run to put Northeast up 6-0 late in the first quarter. Travis answered with a 44-yard Obed Noyola field goal and a 10-yard run by Nick Zake that put the Rebels up 10-6 midway through the third quarter. That’s when things got wild.
First, Northeast executed a double reverse pass as receiver Al Davis floated a pass right to Nick Hernandez for a 31-yard score to put Northeast up 12-10. Northeast looked to go for two in order to go up by four points, but in a stunning twist of events, Travis defensive back Nelson Morales intercepted the attempt and returned it all the way for two points to knot the score up at 12 with six and a half minutes to go. With no more scoring the game went to overtime.
After Northeast got stopped on its first possession, the game seemed to be heading towards a Travis victory. Not so fast. After the Travis ballcarrier was stripped as he sought to beat the Northeast defense to the outside on a handoff, Raider linebacker DeCorey Eason scooped the ball up and raced off for a 70-yard score to clinch a wild and unbelievable 18-12 victory with a rare walk-off defensive overtime touchdown.
With a stout defense leading the way and Northeast on the verge of its first playoff berth since 2016, the Raiders will look to keep the momentum going when they square off against McCallum next Friday.
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