There's no tougher assignment for a football team than to play its traditional rival on its homecoming night.
But for the better part of three quarters, Columbia High had Stevenson right where it wanted it: playing catch-up on a soggy turf, on a drizzly Friday night, when sure hands and solid footing were less than a given.
The Bruins led, 13-7, at halftime after scoring with long passes on their second and third possessions of the first quarter, and thanks to a goal-line stand late in the second.
The second half, however, belonged to the Bulldogs, who marched 71 yards in five plays in the third quarter to tie the game, then scored the go-ahead touchdown after another long drive that ended in the opening minutes of the final period.
Columbia trailed for the second time in the game, 20-13, when it took over at its 35-yard line with just under eight minutes remaining.
The Bruins drove from there to Stevenson's 34--picking up a first down on senior Alex Riley's third-and-long run from midfield--before turning the ball over on the next play to the Bulldogs, who recovered the fumbled pitch at their 35 with 6:19 to play.
The fumble was just one in a series of costly mistakes that helped the Bulldogs erase a six-point deficit.
Earlier, in the third quarter, a bad snap on a fourth-down punt attempt--that senior Jon Bryan had to fall on inside his own 20--indirectly set up Stevenson's tying touchdown.
After stopping the Bruins cold, the Bulldogs forced a punt and took over at their 29-yard line.
Five plays later, quarterback Griffin Scott found tight end Chris Howe, after a blown defensive assignment allowed Howe to come wide open in the middle of the end zone. But the Bruins blocked the point-after kick to maintain a 13-all tie.
Stevenson finally took the lead, however, with a 13-play, 70-yard drive that began late in the third quarter and ended early in the fourth on a 4-yard quarterback draw by Scott.
Brian Nichols tacked on the point-after to give the Bulldogs a 20-13 advantage, their first lead since the 8:01 mark of the first quarter.
Stevenson's come-from-behind victory--its second of the season--was a testament to its perseverence against CHS's bend-but-don't-break defense.
The Bulldogs came within 6 yards of the end zone on the game's opening drive and fell less than a foot short of the goal line toward the end of the first half.
Their comeback was driven by a ground game that had Jared Shank, Cory Creighton and Mike Charlton taking turns picking up significant chunks of yardage and made CHS's defense work overtime to keep the game close.
Columbia's offense, meanwhile, sputtered after the first quarter, failing to sustain drives that would have kept Stevenson's defense on the field longer and might have yielded more scoring opportunities or end-zone visits.
"We had our chances to put them away, but after such a good start, our offense wasn't able to make the plays that could've made the difference," Bruins Coach Scott Ross said. "It was another case of us shooting ourselves in the foot, either with mental-mistake penalties, bad exchanges or fumbles that we lost."
And, though its defense played well enough to give CHS a chance to win, Ross said the Bruins' down linemen weren't fast enough off the snap as the game wore on to get the penetration they needed to slow down Stevenson's running game.
"We still played `too tall' up front and let them blow us off the line too often and pick up the yardage they needed to keep drives going," he added.
Stevenson used its punishing running game--led by Shank's game-high 172 yards--and all but a few seconds of the time left in moving the chains to CHS's 10-yard line before giving the ball back to Columbia.
CHS set up for a last-ditch halfback pass by Bryan on its final play, but Bryan--who tossed a 57-yard scoring strike to sophomore Mason Giovanonni in the first quarter--never got it off.
Instead, a heavy rush by the right side of Stevenson's front line flushed him out of the end-zone pocket.
Bryan's forced scramble up the Stevenson sideline ran out the clock and ended six years of futility for Stevenson, whose 20-13 victory last Friday was its first in the rivalry since 1997.
Moreover, the win kept Stevenson's bid for a Trico Division playoff berth on the table, though the Bulldogs (2-2, 4-2) will have to beat Castle Rock and Woodland to clinch one.
Columbia dropped to 1-2 in the Trico and 2-4 overall after the loss.
And, though still very much a part of a fuzzy playoff picture, the Bruins will have to improve the resolution--and their position in the standings--by defeating La Center, Ridgefield and Woodland in the coming weeks.
They had hoped to continue gathering their forces for a playoff run and to win two in a row for the first time this season. And with their offense scoring quickly and their defense playing well, the Bruins were threatening to do both and knock Stevenson out of the race altogether.
Stevenson grabbed the early lead less than four minutes into the game when Creighton, a linebacker, scored after taking the ball away from a CHS runner at the Bruins' 13-yard line.
But junior place kicker Sebastian Alvarez tied the game at 7 25 seconds later after junior quarterback Mike Charters connected with sophomore tight end Matt Cooley for a 72-yard touchdown pass--a play on which Cooley stumbled but managed to stay on his feet after being tripped up by an attempted shoestring tackle inside Stevenson's 20-yard line.
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