“We were our own worst enemy tonight,” Daugherty said after his team was penalized 10 times against the Applemen. “We had 10 penalties, I think. We were offsides both offensively and defensively. That put us in holes. Most of our offensive drives ended by our own mistakes. And when you’re playing a team that’s trying to get three yards on every snap, and they’re happy with that, you can’t go offsides and put them in second-and-seven or second-and-five, because now they’ve got four downs to get five yards. We did that consecutively tonight.”

Even while swimming upstream against a current of penalties inside Wheeling Island Stadium, the Patriots had a chance to tie the game in the game’s final drive.

Trailing 21-14, the game was on the line from Park’s own 38 yard-line, the Patriots facing fourth-and-three with 2:31 left in the game. Wheeling Park called one timeout without snapping the ball, then called a second timeout after coming back out of the huddle. The stoppages seemed to pay off when Wheeling Park came out of their second timeout, drawing Musselman offsides after shifting formations to pick up the first down. Star running back Brennan Wack plowed the Patriots down the field on three carries, including a 25-yarder, down to Musselman’s five yard-line.

A first-down run went backwards. With no timeouts left, time dipped under a minute for second down- a bobbled handoff that forced a seven-yard loss, and prompted third-and-goal from the 14 yard-line. Musselman called a timeout to set up their defense with 21 ticks left on the clock.

The Applemen defense defended two passes thrown into the end zone, forced a turnover-on-downs, and took a knee to seal the victory as their sideline burst into celebration.

While the final drive was do-or-die, Daugherty was just as focused on another opportunity that the Patriots had to put up points– a drive late in the second half where, up 14-7, Wheeling Park came away empty.

“I felt like we moved the ball, because we did most of the night,” Daugherty said. “I thought earlier when we had a shot to make it 21-7 and didn’t, that was a big deal. That was a big deal right before half. You know, I was worried that that was going to come back to bite us.

“I thought 21-7 was going to put a lot of pressure on [Musselman] because, now they got to make up 14 points, and with the way they play offense, that’s tough. To stay within seven, I thought that was a big deal. I felt like if we execute offensively, we’re going to be in that position. But at the end, we didn’t execute enough to make plays and to finish this game.”

Wack had a monster performance with 244 yards and two touchdowns on the ground, an an 11-yard reception to boot.

Both his scores came in the first half. The senior first found paydirt on the game’s opening drive, a nine-play, seven-minute trek down the field highlighted by a 20-yard Wack run and 21-yard reception by Isaac Sands which ended in a one-yard touchdown plunge.

Musselman responded with a long drive of their own, one that bled over into the start of the second quarter. Musselman’s Zach Miller rolled out and found Landon Clise on a crossing route on fourth-and-five from Park’s 19 yard-line.

After two possessions that took up the entire first quarter, Wheeling Park changed things up a bit. Wack needed precisely one play to score again, taking his first handoff of the second quarter 84 yards- shot out of a cannon up the middle before outrunning the defense’s second level to the sideline and turning upfield on his way to the end zone.

Wack had 137 yards at the half.

Musselman’s ground-bound game was working, though the Applemen often opted to throw it in the red zone- and effectively, with Miller and Colten Shelton each throwing touchdowns. Both are listed as running backs by the Applemen, who do not list a quarterback in their single-wing offense.

Shelton threw a 17-yard touchdown pass on a rollout to tight end Josh Armentrout midway through the third quarter, and the Applemen tied the game with a two-point run from Nate Lasure.

Shelton threw another touchdown, this one an 11-yarder to Miller which put Musselman ahead permanently with 4:28 in the game.

Shelton finished with 92 yards on the ground to go with his two touchdown throws, while Lasure had 59 yards on the ground.

“Our staff, we’ve been playing Musselman long enough, I knew they would get off the bus and they would be ready,” Daugherty said. “I knew they ran an unconventional offense that kind of hit on trying to control the ball and trying to keep our offense off the field. Even though they didn’t score a bunch of points, they did that, you know, they chewed up clock, they maintained the ball a little bit.

We just didn’t deserve to win. At the end of the day, we didn’t deserve to win.”

Wheeling Park (2-1) remains at home for their next game, a meeting with University (3-0). Musselman (1-2) returns to Inwood to face Spring Mills (2-1).