An old-school, all-night-long, hard hitting defensive battle, with a few miscues here and there that could have changed the tone of the game for either team, went into the fourth quarter scoreless in Stringer Friday night.

Things got extremely exciting late in the game, and the Stringer Red Devils eventually were able to escape Mt. Olive in an important Region 4-1A contest, while at the same time capturing a 2020 Homecoming victory.

Stringer fumbled the football away twice inside Mt. Olive's 10-yard line, once in the opening quarter and again in the third quarter, before any points were tapped to the scoreboard. The Pirates suffered blunders, too. Mt. Olive had a 70-yard Quandarius Hubbard touchdown run erased by a holding penalty midway through the third quarter, but Hubbard eventually broke the zilch stalemate in the fourth when he scatted by the Stringer defense on a 36-yard touchdown run to give the Pirates a 6-0 lead with 11:50 remaining in the game.

“We made mistakes tonight. We would drive the ball and fumble the ball. We would get a holding call deep in the red zone. That's always going to hurt you. You put fumbles on the ground and have turnovers, and bad things are going to happen,” Cascio said following the game. “Our guys were just resilient, though. They never quit, and we were able to rise to the top late in the ballgame. We stuck with what we do, and it worked for us,” said Stringer head coach Morris Cascio following the game.

Apparently, that's stick with it, and not give up.

Later in the fourth quarter, Stringer took its first lead of the game. Quarterback Jackson Parker connected with Jared Hosey on a very much needed 38-yard touchdown pass that, following the extra point, gave the Red Devils a 7-6 advantage with 10:49 left in the game.

Parker and Hosey hooked up several times during the third game of the season in a blowout win over Salem and seem to have formed a bond. Although only a one-time pass-and-catch connection between the two Friday night, it may have very well saved the Red Devils against Mt. Olive.

“Both of them are juniors. They are in the classroom together, and they love playing ball with each other,” Cascio said. “And with 'Jack,' if you just give him a few seconds, he can just flip the ball about 40 yards. Hosey knows this. He just danced around, got away from his man, and there the ball was.”

Mount Olive gave up the passing touchdown but certainly was not finished.

Several minutes later, the Pirates went back on top of the Red Devils when Javeon Gordon weaved his way through what seemed to be a spent Stringer defense, while forcing a number of missed tackles, on the way to a 59-yard touchdown run that gave the Pirates a 12-7 lead with 4:05 left in the game.

Trailing Mt. Olive and with the game clock hovering above two minutes and its backs against the wall, the Red Devils somehow put together a strong defensive stand. Stringer, both teams visibly exhausted but still fighting for a win, then gutted out what would be the game-winning drive that landed Omarion Bridges in the endzone on a 15-yard gallop right through the meat of the Mt. Olive defense with 1:11 left in the ballgame to hand the Devils 14-12 cushion following the extra point.

In fashion with what had taken place throughout the fourth quarter excitement of points being placed on the scoreboard, coach Dante Durr's Pirates were not finished after the late Stringer scoring drive. Mt. Olive's Gordon took the ensuing kickoff into Red Devils territory. The Stringer defense had to dig deep to thwart a Pirates offense that seemed to have grabbed a second wind late and was moving the football within 40 seconds left in the contest. But, the Red Devils eventually got the job done in a nail-biter as time expired.

“I thought our defensive coordinator had a good game plan. We gave up some runs, and we got lucky with some holding calls, but [Bryce] did a great job until the end,” Cascio mentioned. “Bryce Randall is our defensive coordinator, and he gets our guys ready to play every week. Tonight he was tested, and he kept moving our guys around and putting people in different spots. It paid off for us.”

Cascio also highly complimented what he feels is an upcoming Mt. Olive football team that took his squad to the wire Friday night.

“That is a good ball team,” he said. “Next year, that's going to be a great ball team. They are young and can go.”

Stringer (2-2) will host another important region game this coming Friday night when Resurrection Catholic (4-0) comes to town. Resurrection whipped Mt. Olive 30-6 during its third game of the season.

“We are going to have a big week this coming week. We have homecoming behind us, and we are going to get ready for Resurrection,” Cascio said.