His team found that out Friday, but the Eagles were up for the challenge.

Hubbard ran for 398 yards, and they made a few clutch passes on fourth-down conversions to outlast Alliance, 42-38, in a Division III, Region 9 quarterfinal at Hubbard’s Memorial Stadium.

“An 0-6 record is not indicative of how talented that team is,” Hoffman said. “That quarterback (Brandon Alexander) was injured and out for two games. He’s a heck of a player. He’s obviously a Division I prospect for a reason. He made a lot of plays. Our guys were resilient. I commend our offensive line, our running backs, our quarterback played really well tonight. Our receivers made some plays at times. It was a good team effort.”

Hubbard (5-2) needed it all.

Staff photo / Joe Simon Evan Jarvis (1) of Hubbard runs past an Alliance defender in the Eagles’ win on Friday night.

The 6-foot-3, 210-pound Alexander, a Youngstown State University recruit, completed 21-of-30 passes for 279 yards and two touchdowns. He also ran for two scores, including two in the fourth quarter to pull the Aviators within a touchdown each time.

Hubbard always had an answer. T.C. Caffey ran for 263 yards and had TD runs of 5, 51 and 53. The Eagles made a few critical fourth-down conversions in the red zone as well. They trailed at halftime, 16-15 before going up 21-16 on Caffey’s 53-yard scamper, a play in which he ran over and through multiple defenders. Then came the fourth-down plays.

They faced fourth-and-goal from the 5-yard line, and Andrew Frank made a great lunging grab in the end zone to go up 27-16. Alexander and the Aviators answered with a 14-yard TD pass to pull within 28-24. The Eagles put together another long drive, but it stalled inside the 10. Facing fourth-and-6, Jarvis, who passed the ball just six times in the game, threw a perfect pass to Brant Boraweic to put Hubbard up, 35-24.

“Those were huge plays,” Hoffman said. “We liked the matchups we had on the outside. Those are plays that we practiced during the week, and we felt confidence in Evan making those throws. We practiced them, we, with Boraweic and Andrew Frank, we just felt like they had good matchups there. And hey, it’s playoff season, you don’t want to leave anything in your pocket. Somebody needed to make a play, and we had confidence those guys could make it.”

Alliance didn’t fold.

They cut the lead to 35-30 just a minute and a half later on a 10-yard TD run by Alexander. Hubbard got the ball back with 7:36 left in the game and faced third-and-8 at the 13-yard line with less than 4 minutes remaining. Boraweic took a jet-sweep around the left side, made a nice cut up field and raced into the end zone.

Alexander quickly responded. He took the Aviators 67 yards in 2 minutes and six seconds, and his 12-yard run made it 42-38 with 1:13 remaining. Alliance looked to recover the onside kick, but the ball didn’t travel 10 yards. Hubbard took over and ran out the clock.

The Eagles play Geneva in a second-round matchup next week.

It wasn’t easy to get there, but that’s how Caffey likes it.

“I like to battle in those hard games,” he said.