Photos by Sean McNamara
Wheeling – With 14 seconds left on the clock in the Class AA title game, the North Marion sideline erupted with joy.
By the time the clock hit 12 there wasn’t a smile to be seen on the home sideline.
No. 2 Fairmont Senior stopped the Huskies’ two-point conversion attempt in the waning seconds of the Class AA state championship game, upending No. 1 North Marion 49-48 Friday night in Wheeling Island Stadium.
With the win the Polar Bears claimed their fourth Class AA title since 2018.
Landon Frey’s acrobatic, one-handed 28-yard touchdown grab with 14 seconds left was cause for excitement and presented North Marion (12-2) with the opportunity to tie or take the lead against Fairmont (11-2). The Huskies elected for the latter and struggled from the jump. The snap was to the far right of North Marion QB Casey Minor who reached back to coral it but with the timing of the play off he was stopped short of the goal line.
“The decision to go for two was probably made when I was 23 years old and got the job,” North Marion head coach Daran Hays said. “We don’t play to lose, we don’t play for overtime and we didn’t last year against them. It didn’t work out. And I know that’s what everybody’s gonna point to and we got a better kicker this year but I’m not gonna put it on our kicker. I’m not putting it on a snapper and a holder. I’m gonna put it on (Casey Minor, Brandon Matheny, Nathan Miller, Aaron Hoffman) and so on and that’s what we did. We came up a yard short and they made a play. The quarterback-center exchange wasn’t great, wasn’t clean and probably kept us out but man I thought they played lights out.”
Dylan Ours was largely the reason the Huskies faced that deficit. The junior tailback scored a Super Six record six rushing touchdowns, toppling the all-class record of five.
“That’s what he does, man,” Fairmont head coach Nick Bartic said. “He did what he what he does, he’s most versatile player in the state. There might have been a few records broken out there.”
The score was indicative of how the game played out with neither team leading by more than one score and tied at 21 at the break.
The Huskies, who never led in the first half, remedied that in the third when Aaron Hoffman scored from 10 yards out, one his four rushing scores on the evening. Ours answered with touchdown No. 3 to knot it but the Huskies seized the momentum again when a punt on their following possession was muffed by the Polar Bears and recovered by the Huskies, setting up a Minor touchdown run from 17 yards out. Two more scores from Ours and one from Hoffman led to a 42-42 tie before the Huskies handed the Polar Bears the equalizer.
A fumbled pitch with 2:04 remaining was recovered by Fairmont at the North Marion 25. The Polar Bears drained the clock down to 51 seconds before Ours scored on his final tote of the evening to establish a 49-42 advantage.
It took the Huskies seven plays to go 75 yards in 31 seconds, where Minor connected with Frey for the final score.
The Huskies came out under center for the two-point try, calling a timeout to get on the same play. Afterwards the stop was made to cement the game. Fittingly, Ours recovered the onside kick attempt.
“We practice the goal line defense,” Bartic said. “We practice it all the time. Anytime we’ve ever won a state championship game we tell our guys all the time there was a goal line stop that had to be made and this time it happened to be for the win.”
Ours, who finished with 27 carries for 188 yards and six scores was named team MVP for Fairmont Senior while Hoffman earned the honors for North Marion with 233 yards and four scores on the ground.
