Staff photo / Brian Yauger Mineral Ridge’s Ian Erb runs past a pair of Jackson-Milton defenders Friday night during the Rams’ 42-7 win. Erb ran for three touchdowns on the night as Mineral Ridge improved to 6-1 on the season.

BOARDMAN — In a season full of missed opportunities, Warren G. Harding finally made the most of them Friday night.

Trailing by eight entering the fourth quarter at Boardman, the Raiders rallied for 11 unanswered points, capped by a 17-yard Jake Daugherty field goal as time expired to top the host Spartans on their homecoming night, 24-21.

“A huge win,” said Harding head coach Steve Arnold. “From the standpoint of No. 1, it’s a win, and the second part, to come from behind like we did, you can build off this win and the matter in which we were able to come back and get the victory in the fourth quarter. I thought that was huge, and really big for our young team — a confidence builder.”

Harding’s game-winning drive was set up by an interception by Raylin Weaver, who returned it to the Raider 35 with 2:30 to go. From there, Harding (2-5) marched down the field primarily on the ground.

Dalys Jett had two key runs on the drive, a 13-yarder early on and then later a 17-yard run to the Boardman 7 yard line with 1:00 to go. After he pushed the ball to the 1, Arnold allowed the clock to wind down to two seconds and set up Daugherty’s field goal.

Boardman initially called a timeout to ice the junior, but his subsequent kick split the uprights, and he was mobbed by his teammates at midfield.

“I’m hard on Jake, and he’d be the first one to tell you I’m very hard on him, but I expect this from Jake because this is his third year kicking,” Arnold said. “He kicked as a freshman and sophomore and now as a junior, so I expect him to knock those down. He’s a winner, and he’s a fierce competitor.”

The Spartans (4-3), which had won three straight games going into Friday night, took an early 7-0 lead on a 63-yard run from Fernando Ortiz. That was the first of two long runs for the senior, who also logged a 75-yard run late in the third quarter that put the Spartans up 21-13.

He finished with 178 yards and two scores on 16 carries.

“That’s what we do, and that’s something we’ve done for the last three or four weeks since he’s come back,” Boardman coach D.J. Dota said of Ortiz and the long touchdowns, both of which were off the left tackle. “We felt that was something we could do against them, and our guys did a great job of executing on great runs.”

Harding tied the game at 7 on a 1-yard Jett run that took the teams tied at 7-7 going into halftime. The Raiders started the third quarter with a 12-yard Ryan Powell touchdown with 10:21 to go, which was set up by a 64-yard kickoff return by Oryan Dukes.

Dukes finished the night with 81 yards on 12 carries, while Powell logged 83 yards and his score on 14 rushes. Jett added 20 carries for 101 yards and two scores. As a team, Harding ran for 265 yards, a step forward for a young team that has had trouble in that department to this point.

“We said last Friday after (the loss to St. Vincent-St. Mary), and then Saturday and Monday, that we’re going to run the football, and we’re going to see what we’re made of,” Arnold said. “We put the onus on our offensive line and our backs to run the football.”

Boardman answered Powell’s touchdown with a 19-yard strike from Tomas Andujar to Willy Torres, which put the Spartans ahead 14-13. Ortiz’s second touchdown extended that advantage to 21-13 entering the fourth.

After that, however, the Spartan offense struggled. Boardman was forced to punt on its first drive of the fourth quarter. On the ensuing drive, Harding marched 72 yards for a touchdown, capped by a 2-yard run from Dalys Jett and then a 2-point conversion run from the quarterback to tie the contest at 21-21 with 3:32 to play.

“I thought our defense came up big,” Arnold said. “We gave up the big runs and the big pass play, which we can’t allow that to happen. We had a busted coverage. … We had them backed up, and we have to keep them backed up, but I thought the defense and special teams played pretty well tonight.”

Defensively for Harding, Nehemiah Alexander had a pair of sacks to go with a pair of TFLs, while Weaver came up with the critical interception on Boardman’s final drive.

The Spartans were hampered by penalties throughout the contest, as Boardman was flagged 10 times for 75 yards. Harding had four penalties for 45 yards.

“We talked about a few things. No. 1, it stinks that when you’re in a hard-fought game like that, somebody’s got to lose, and unfortunately that was us,” Dota said. “Not one play made that football game. One play didn’t make the difference. It was a series or multiple plays that happened in that game. I told (the players) I’m proud of them.

“We played really hard. Some of our penalties were aggressive penalties, and that’s how we’re going to play. I can like those or not like those; it doesn’t matter. But we’re at least playing hard and doing the major things we’ve talked about. On Monday, we’re going to evaluate ourselves, and our job is to show back up with our heads up and get ready to play and get better.”

Boardman hosts Dover next week. Harding hosts Cardinal Mooney.