RUTLAND — The Middlebury Union High School football team on Friday night rallied to defeat host Rutland, 28-27, in overtime, with Jackson Donahue’s 16th consecutive extra point providing the winning margin after Paul Deering’s 10-yard run tied the game.
The key win moved the Tigers to 3-2 and kept them in thick of the Division I playoff race, while the Raiders dropped to 1-4.
Raider kicker Noah Crossman’s overtime extra-point attempt hit an upright after the Raiders took a 27-21 lead, and Crossman’s 25-yard attempt at a game-winner in the final minute in regulation with the score tied at 21-21 also struck an upright. The Raiders took the lead in overtime on quarterback Jared Miglorie’s 4-yard run.
Earlier, the Raiders took a 6-0 lead on an 8-yard Miglorie run that capped a 65-yard march. The Tigers blocked the extra-point kick.
The Tigers then took a 7-6 lead when QB Cody Pomainville hit Wyatt Cameron with a 7-yard TD pass, a play set up by a Pomainville interception.
Rutland answered with a 72-yard drive and a 2-yard TD run by Miglorie, who added a two-point conversion run to make it 14-7 at the half.
The Tigers knotted the score at 14-14 at 10:09 of the fourth quarter, when Pomainville hit Skyeler Devlin with a 23-yard TD pass. Rutland made it 21-14 at 8:02 on a 26-yard pass from Miglorie to Dakota Peters.
The Tigers tied the game with a long march that ended with a 26-yard Pomainville TD run with just under five minutes to go in regulation.
Miglorie ran for 134 yards on 27 attempts, while Deering carried 12 times for 95 yards for the Tigers.