The Falcons had their perfect season on the line, after trials and tribulations earlier in the season against the likes of Harding and Chaney.

The Big Red of Steubenville proved to be Austintown’s biggest test of the 2020 campaign, with the visiting team coming in off of a bye week.

When the clock hit zero at Falcon Stadium, the score read 42-41.

A 6-0 record — perfection.

Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes Fitch junior Tyler Evans, left, fights off Steubenville's Niko Suriano.

Almost at a loss for words following the emotional win, Fitch coach TJ Parker said he knows that being undefeated means the world to his team.

“For these seniors, it means so much to them,” he said. “That was a game where doubt started to creep in a little bit.

“And we told them, this is a game that’ll project us into the playoffs, and you saw, we started to get up a little faster, we started getting to the line, and we just kept at it until something bounced our way, and it did late.”

Steubenville wasted zero time scoring when sophomore Spencer Ostovich ran in from 27 yards out for the first of his four scores on the first drive of the game. It was an uphill battle from there.

Fitch struck back with 6:33 in the first when senior Nate Leskovac found paydirt from 1 yard out to tie the game.

Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes Fitch running back Jamell James looks to find running room against Big Red.

Following another Big Red score, Fitch quarterback Devin Sherwood found junior Tyler Evans for 6-yards midway through the second quarter to make it 14-14.

Late in the second quarter, a long pass from Sherwood to Todd Simons resulted in the Falcons’ first fumble of the season, and put Steubenville in a position to go up 21-14 before halftime.

Sophomore Jamell James tied the game again with a 3-yard touchdown to make it 21 all early in the third quarter. Down 28-21, Evans hit Simons on a trick play from 19 yards out to knot it up at 28-28 going into the fourth quarter.

Steubenville owned the ball for most of the fourth quarter and scored to make it 35-28 with 6:50 to go. Leskovac responded a few plays later with a 58-yard run to again tie the contest with 5:54 remaining.

Leskovac said he thinks his team found motivation in proving the doubters wrong, despite all of the adversity the Falcons faced throughout the season.

Correspondent photo / Robert Hayes Fitch defenders Jaden Murry, CJ Schisler and Reggie Floyd tackle Steubenville FB Isaiah McCartney.

“That’s fuel for our fire, it really is,” he said. “Because we’re such a driven team, we’re driven. We want to be so good, we have a ton of guys with heart and that makes us fly out there.”

Eventually the two squads found themselves in overtime, Sherwood hit Simons from 21 yards out on second-and-11 to give Fitch its first lead of the evening. Steubenville scored on its ensuing possession after a mob pushed Isiah McCartney into the endzone.

The deciding moment came when the Big Red (3-2) opted to go for two instead of kicking the PAT, a move that prove todetermine the final outcome, as a swarm of Falcons defenders stopped the play short of the goal line.

Sherwood was 13-17 with 239 yards and four touchdowns. The junior said he loves having guys like Simons downfield.

“Well, me and Simons have a pretty good connection, I trust him a lot,” Sherwood said. “I know he’ll go up and get the ball for me, and he just made a good play on it.”

James ended with 115 yards on 13 carries, Leskovac hauled in 92 yards on four catches, along with Simons who had 80 and Evans’ 67.

“I like to think we can go all the way,” Sherwood said. “I don’t think there’s a team on our schedule that we can’t beat.”