By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

KEIZER, Ore.–  They needed a score with less than six minutes to go in the game down 12 to McNary following the Celtics Brendan Van Voorhis’ fifth touchdown of the game with 6:32 left in the game.

Behind Noah Tavera, their offensive line and company they drove the field like they did for a good amount of the game and for most of this young season.

With 4:03 left, the drive ended with Tavera throwing a Touchdown strike to Hector Diaz Jr and with the PAT it was 46-41 as they looked to their defense to make a final stand to give their offense one last chance for the win.

“It was exciting,” started Tavera.  “We had a lot of energy.  I know we really wanted that win, we wanted to start off with a streak going 2-0 but we couldn’t get it going.

“But we all played hard and we played well.”

They need a stop as they forced the Celtics to a third and one with about two minutes to go.

“It boosted our confidence up a lot and it put us back into the game,” said Khyler Beach. “We thought we would go out there and get the ball back and get another touchdown on offense.”

Mckay met McNarys running back at the line, but the Celts had enough for the first.

Second and five with 73 seconds left in the game when the Scots call timeout.

But McNary picked up enough for the first down to finish off the 46-41 win as they recovered a botched fumble on the last play of the game.

“I thought we played our asses off, but we just came up short and next week we’ll be ready,” said Beach.  “We got to have a good week of practice.”

At one point of the game, McKay held a 21-19 lead following a series of scoring blows by both teams before the Celtics took a 25-21 lead into the halftime break with a Van Voorhis’ score with three seconds remaining.

McNary would increase that lead to 39-21 with three minutes left in the game before McKay scored twice entering the fourth quarter down 39-34.

Van Voorhis scored his final score with 6:32 remaining before Tavera’s Drive to keep his Scots within striking distance of the Celts.

Head Coach Josh Riddell like the resilience of his team Friday Night.

“That’s the thing to take away, they’ve played hard every game, every play so it’s definitely not effort.  The kids are flying around, it’s not effort.  There’s a lot of things we’ve could’ve done better today, execution-wise and things like that.

Riddell admits that Van Voorhis’ talent was a big factor in the game and he’s not taking it away from him, he knows that his team has to execute better.

“That’s what it really is, both these last few games that we’ve lost, we’ve gave up a few big plays and the kid out here (Van Voorhis), he’s fast and you can’t take that away from him,” said Riddell.  “You just have to take your hat off to that.  And a couple other times, we put a couple of guys on him and he still makes the play.

“So it was a great game, we’ll get back to the grinder.  We just got to execute.  We will continue to play hard so we just have to execute better.”

UP NEXT- MCKAY- vs. West Albany (9/30) 7p MCNARY- vs. Forest Grove (9/30) 7p

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81 PHOTOS BY JEREMY MCDONALD