RALEIGH, N.C. — Leesville Road remains undefeated.

This late in the season that’s always a good thing, but Enloe sure made the Pride fight for it.

No. 19 Leesville Road jumped out to a 20-point lead with 6:14 remaining but had to held on for a 27-21 win after an impressive comeback attempt by the Eagles in the final 5:04.

It was really the first time the Pride (8-0, 3-0) had been tested all season. Leesville’s closest game this season had been a 28-point margin. The Pride rolled into Enloe (4-3, 1-2) averaging 43.4 points per game.

But they can’t all be one-sided.

“You have to find ways to win, right?” Leesville head coach Ben Kolstad said. “Championship teams find ways to win. What I’m disappointed in is all the extra penalties. The game was in hand and we let them back in it.”

AkShar Barnes scored his second rushing touchdown of the second half to make it 27-21 midway through the fourth. It appeared at that moment that Leesville Road had put the final nail in the Enloe coffin. On the next drive Eagles’ quarterback Robey Keys took a hit and had to leave the game. Freshman Jonah El-amin entered the contest cold and threw a touchdown on his third pass attempt, a 72-yarder to Elijah Kirkpatrick. The PAT made it 27-14.

Leesville attempted to run some clock and faced a fourth-and-1, but the Pride were called for a false start penalty, forcing them to punt instead. Enloe took over on the 28 with 4:01 remaining. A personal foul against Leesville Road moved the ball to the Pride 25. Two plays later El-amin found Kirkpatrick again, this time for a 20-yard touchdown. After the extra point, the Eagles trailed the Pride by six with 2:40 remaining.

The Enloe magic wasn’t over yet.

After recovering the onside kick, the Eagles found themselves facing a 3rd and 22. El-amin rolled out and found Nathan Peters behind the defense for a first down at the 25-yard line.

The clock would strike midnight on the Cinderella Eagles, who couldn’t punch it after that, but Enloe head coach Ryan Clark was proud of how his team didn’t fold.

“We got some fight,” Clark said. “I challenged them to play for 48 minutes, they gave me everything they had up until the last play. We’re excited to take this learning opportunity the last three weeks to try and compete and make the playoffs.”

Leesville Road’s playoff position, though not the seeding, is secure.

The Pride appears to be on a collision course with Cardinal Gibbons for the Cap-6 title game the final week of the regular season. The only thing standing in their way is a showdown at Athens Drive next week.

Leesville Road is 8-0 for the first time since 2019, the same year the Pride played for a state title. That’s the goal, but whether he liked it or not, Kolstad knew his team needed a real test before they started thinking about championships.

“You want to put yourselves in situations like this, we really haven’t had any close ones,” Kolstad said. “Our kids battled.”

It took Leesville Road five plays to get on the board. Deiondre Goldston hit Jayden Lee Perry for an 8-yard touchdown less than two minutes into the game. The conversion failed, but the Pride quickly led 6-0.

The Eagles drove the length of the field on the ensuing drive, but were stopped on a fourth and five inside the redzone.

Leesville Road went ahead 13-0 when Goldston connected with his brother Devin, a perfect strike from 12-yards out with 1:08 remaining in the first half.

Enloe showed plenty of fight in the second quarter, perhaps a sign of things to come. The Eagles forced some stops on defense and eventually found the end zone. Junior running back Chase White struck paydirt from 29-yards away. The PAT made it 13-7 with 5:47 remaining in the half.

Enloe forced a punt with less than one minute remaining, but didn’t move the ball as time ran off the clock, ending the half and, for a bit, the Eagles’ momentum.

Barnes scored his first rushing touchdown, from seven yards out, with 1:17 remaining in the third to push the Leesville lead to 21-7. Barnes scored his second to make it a 20-point game before Enloe made things interesting.

Before tonight, El-amin hadn’t attempted a varsity pass. Coming in cold, he showed plenty of arm strength leading the Eagles to two scoring drives.

“He stepped up, he had no flinch,” Clark said about his rookie. “Our guys work with him everyday, they have confidence in him and he just played. I told him to step out there and play like he’s in the backyard. He almost put the team on his back.”

Clark has his guys in the hunt for a potential playoff spot the last three weeks of the regular season, which would be their first trip since 2018. Leesville Road has been a longtime playoff fixture, but Kolstad wants to see complete games down the stretch.

“We’re getting close to that,” he said. “We either start fast or we finish fast, but just continue to grow and finish strong. We win the last two games and we’ll be champions. That’s what our goal is.”

Source: highschoolot.com