Staff photo / Greg Macafee. Struthers' Jason Dukes (2) lays out for the pylon during the Wildcats' 14-9 win over Poland.

POLAND — For the second time in three weeks, Struthers and Poland battled to the wire.

This time around, the No. 6 Wildcats (9-3) came out on top, securing a 14-9 Division IV, Region 13 quarterfinal victory over No. 3 Poland (10-2) to advance in the OHSAA playoffs.

Just two weeks ago, Poland outlasted Struthers 28-27 in overtime in their regular season finale, but the Wildcats stole the show Friday night

“We knew that it was going to come down to the wire, and luckily for us, we were able to finish this time, like they did last time,” Struthers head coach John Bayuk said.

Not only was it an exciting victory for the Wildcats, but it was historic. Bayuk said it was Struthers’ first Week 12 victory since he joined the staff 10 years ago.

But the Wildcats’ success over the past two seasons has been attributed to “Trusting the Climb,” a mantra they’ve adopted and have plastered over t-shirts and sweatshirts along the sideline. They’ve believed in building up the program and building up the culture of the program, and now, in Bayuk’s fourth year at the helm, it’s paid off.

“When I took over, these seniors were freshmen, and they’ve fought through adversity all four years and they deserve to be where they are at right now, with the way they’ve worked and not given up,” Bayuk said. “That’s the whole mantra of ‘Trust the Climb.’ Our community has bought into it, our school has bought into it and it just makes me want to cry. I’m just so happy about all of this.”

The second go-around between Struthers and Poland was a back-and-forth battle through the first half with neither team budging an inch. The only points put on the scoreboard before the intermission came from the foot of Poland’s junior kicker Jas Stefancin, who drilled a 22-yard field goal with 7:54 to go in the second quarter.

Outside of that, there were seven punts combined in the first half and a turnover on downs by Struthers after coming up short on a fourth and 1. But the Wildcats stuck to their game plan as they went into half down by three points.

“Our message was ‘Do what we do,'” Bayuk said. “We were just slipping at times. We missed an assignment here, missed an assignment there. We were one block away. So we didn’t want to get away from what we do, we just had to fix it.”

The Wildcats did indeed fix it, and junior quarterback Jason Dukes took advantage.

With just over seven minutes left in the third quarter, Dukes picked off Poland quarterback Dom Pagano and returned the interception to Poland’s 11 yard line. Two plays later he turned the corner on the right edge and leaped into the endzone to give Struthers its first lead of the game.

“I saw the wide receiver break down and I just bit,” Dukes said about his interception. “If he did a hitch and go, it was caught.”

Then, after the Struthers’ defense forced another Poland punt, Dukes broke free up the left sideline for a 63-yard touchdown run.

“He lights our fire sometimes, and that’s what you need,” Bayuk said. “Coming out of halftime, we needed a spark. We talked as a coaching staff coming out of halftime, we needed a big play, and that was it. He ignited the Struthers fire.”

Dukes finished with 84 yards and two touchdowns on 12 carries, while the Wildcats rushed for 192 yards on 38 carries as a team. The Wildcats also held Poland to just 61 yards on the ground.

After Dukes’ long rushing touchdown, the Bulldogs answered almost immediately as Pagano hit Cole Fulton for a 61-yard touchdown down the right sideline. Pagano finished with 158 yards passing while Fulton finished with 77 receiving yards.

A last-second effort by the Bulldogs came up just short as Pagano threw a Hail Mary to the end zone with 10 seconds left, but Dukes picked off the pass and sealed the victory.

“We came in knowing that we were going to put up a fight,” Dukes said. “We knew this was going to be a war after losing to them in overtime. All week we were thinking about it. Vengeance, that’s all we were thinking about.”

Struthers got their vengeance, and now they are moving on to the regional semifinals where they’ll face off with No. 2 Mentor Lake Catholic who defeated Niles 35-21.

gmacafee@tribtoday.com