‘Our will won out.’ Beechwood scores third straight down-to-the-wire title in Class 2A.

Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. But you have to be good to take advantage of luck, and Beechwood is more than good.

For the third year in a row, the Tigers won the KHSAA Class 2A UK HealthCare Sports Medicine State Football Finals. For the third year in a row, the Tigers won by a narrow margin decided in the final minutes. The score in this edition: Beechwood 14, Mayfield 13.

The Cardinals, looking to finalize a Hollywood script nearly a year after their community was devastated by a tornado, seized momentum in the fourth quarter after forcing and recovering a fumble near midfield. With 1:13 remaining in the period, quarterback Zane Cartwright found Isaac Stevenson in the corner of the end zone and delivered a 9-yard touchdown. A PAT would tie the game, and with three timeouts in its corner, Mayfield could potentially force a Beechwood punt and get an opportunity to win in regulation.

Alas, the kick doinked off the goalpost’s left upright — situated a couple feet from where it would stand on a high school field — and Mayfield’s defense couldn’t stop the Tigers again.

“They made one more play than we did, I guess,” Mayfield head coach Joe Morris said after his team (14-1) suffered its first loss this season. “But I couldn’t be more proud of our young men. They played their hearts out today.”

Noel Rash, Beechwood’s head coach, noted that he and KHSAA Commissioner Julian Tackett exchanged texts about the matchup this week.

“He said, ‘I saw you guys on tape and I’m expecting a humdinger,” Rash said. “‘So, I guess you guys just saw a humdinger. These kinds of games can go either way. As many mistakes as we made — and they forced us into those mistakes — at the end of the day, we kept believing. Our will won out.”

It was the third straight year that Beechwood’s will overwhelmed that of its opponent. In 2020, the Tigers edged Lexington Christian Academy, 24-23, in overtime after blocking a PAT. Last season, they again defeated LCA, 23-21, after putting a go-ahead field goal through with 1:56 remaining and securing a fourth-down stop on their side of the field.

A 7-7 tie through three quarters was broken quickly in the opening seconds of the fourth when Chase Flaherty ran in the go-ahead touchdown. To that point, both offenses struggled to string together substantive drives. Both teams missed field-goal attempts in the first half, and each finished with a similar stat line on the same number of plays (49). Beechwood edged Mayfield in total yards, 271-260, and its ability to contain Mayfield in short-yardage situations throughout the evening factored into a linebacker — Austin Waddell — being named game MVP.

“When you gotta run against him and you’ve gotta cut back in the middle against that dude, you better strap it on,” Rash said of Waddell. “He made a difference today.”

The Tigers (14-1) committed two more penalties than Mayfield, and two of them combined to erase an interception and set up the Cardinals’ first score: Juju Starks, who rushed for a game-high 105 yards, ran for a 16-yard TD with 9:02 to play in the third, answering a second-quarter TD reception by Beechwood’s Liam McCormack.

In addition to the doink, this year’s “humdinger” finish was aided by Alex Courtney, whose only two carries came on the final drive after Flaherty, Beechwood’s starter, was helped off the field following his fumble on its prior drive. Courtney rushed for no gain on his first touch, then rumbled for a 43-yard pickup to position the Tigers for victory formation.

“That was awesome watching him bury that guy then keep going after that,” said Mitchell Berger, another Beechwood running back. “It was sweet.”

Berger, a senior who’s committed to play baseball for Eastern Kentucky University, watched the game from the sideline; the Mr. Football challenger suffered a season-ending knee injury in mid-October. Flaherty rose to the occasion in his stead, and Courtney did the same for him.

“The next man up kept getting it done,” Rash said.

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