With running back Carter Hewitt leading the way, the Red Storm rallied to eke out a 29-28 victory over Saranac Central to improve to 2-0 in the Champlain Valley Athletic Conference.

For the second week in a row, Hewitt had a standout afternoon leading the Red Storm to victory, and the junior capped off the effort by carrying the football into the end zone on a 2-point conversion run with 1:38 remaining in the fourth quarter to put Saranac Lake on top to stay. By the time the final buzzer sounded, Hewitt had scored all but one of the Red Storm’s points on three touchdown carries, a touchdown catch and two conversion runs. He finished with 140 yards rushing on 28 attempts.

In a game that saw the lead change hands six times, Saranac Lake was able to seal the win with the clock winding down when its defense forced the Chiefs to go three-and-out on the final possession of the game.

“That was incredible,” Saranac Lake head coach Eric Bennett said. “We just played a very hard-nosed Saranac team, and they were missing some guys. First of all, I think it took us a little bit to get up to game speed after last weekend, and I think they presented some problems up front for us that we need to iron out.

Saranac Lake’s Brady Roberts makes a pass downfield during Saturday’s game against Saranac Central. (Enterprise photo — Parker O’Brien)

“It’s a little bit surreal,” Bennett continued. “As coaches you start thinking about where is this game going, and it just felt really calm. We knew it wasn’t going to be over until it was over, and we just made big plays when we had to.”

Things couldn’t have started off better for Saranac Lake when Defensive lineman Sawyer Trudeau recovered a fumble on the Chiefs first offensive play of the game. Starting at Saranac’s 35, Saranac Lake reached the end zone in straight running plays by Hewitt, with a six-yard sprint across the goal line capping off the drive.

The dogfight then began. The Chiefs took the lead on a 21-yard touchdown run and a successful point-after kick by Nathan Hamel on the final play of the opening quarter.

Saranac Lake then jumped ahead 14-8 on its next possession when Hewitt scored on a seven-yard run and added two points on a conversion carry 1:02 into the second quarter. Saranac answered late when Justin Bedard snagged a 12-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Landen Smith on the final play of the half. Hamel sent the conversion kick through the uprights to send the teams into halftime in a 14-14 deadlock.

The Chiefs grabbed their first lead of the game with the only points scored in the third quarter, with Smith sprinting into the end zone with 58 seconds left to put his team on top 20-14. The point after kick was blocked, and the Red Storm then bounced back to regain the lead early in the fourth quarter. Trailing by six points, Hewitt pulled Saranac Lake even at 20-20 on a five-yard run 1:07 into the fourth period, and Landon Faubert connected on the conversion kick to give the Red Storm a one-point edge.

Saranac Lake senior running back carries the ball during a play in the fourth quarter of Saturday’s football game at Saranac Central. Also pictured is Chiefs defender Gabe Spaulding (34) and the Red Storm’s Ben Cope, who is looking to make a block on the play. (Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter photo)

Saranac then answered, with Smith scoring on a 28-yard run with 3:52 left in the fourth. He then found Bedard open in the end zone on a successful conversion pass to give the Chiefs a 28-21 edge.

With the possibility of seeing their first loss looming, the Red Storm did not make things easy for themselves in the closing minutes, despite finding room to run the ball deep into Chiefs territory. But after fumbling the ball away twice inside Saranac’s 10-yard line on two straight possessions, the Red Storm got a badly need break when the Chiefs were in punt formation with Smith ready to kick the ball away. But while fielding a low snap, Smith put his knee down, which gave Saranac Lake the ball 19-yards away from the goal line. On the next play, Roberts threaded a pass to Hewitt in the end zone through two defenders to set up the dramatic game-winning conversion play.

Instead of attempting a conversion kick to tie, Bennett and the Red Storm turned to what had worked for their team for most of the game, and that was giving the ball to Hewitt. After two timeouts called by Saranac Lake and another called by the Chiefs, Hewitt took a direct handoff and ran off the left side of the line into the end zone with the winning points.

“Running in that two-point conversion for the win, that’s one of the best moments I’ve ever had,” Hewitt said. “I can’t thank my line enough for blocking down and opening up those gaps for me. There were about three gaps I could have taken. I saw my first one and I was in.

“Getting that fumble on the first play of the game, that set the tone and we just wanted to carry that momentum all the way through the game,” Hewitt added. “We had some lows but we came right back up. We know Saranac is a good team, but we knew if we did everything right we’d win. We ended up making a few mistakes, which made things closer than we thought. We came out here, gave it our all, and that’s why we won.”

Saranac Lake’s Carter Hewitt runs into the endzone on a 2-point conversion to take the lead against Saranac Central on Saturday. (Enterprise photo — Parker O’Brien)

For the second straight week, Saranac Central found itself suffering a close loss, but despite falling to 0-2, Chiefs head coach Dylan Everleth saw bright spots with his team that refused to quit.

“We did a great job improving from last week but there are many things we still can improve upon – a lot of cleaning up the easy stuff,” Everleth said. “Our guys have the heart, they played hard and they played for the whole game. It’s not fun to lose, but there a lot of good things we can take out of this.

“I said at the beginning of the year it can be anybody’s league,” Everleth continued. “Today, hats off to them for getting a good win. It was a fun game and a good game to learn from. We stayed in there. One of the big things is having longer drives, taking care of the ball. They had the ball for about 19 minutes of the second half. Anytime they have the ball like that and we don’t that’s not good.”

With the win, Saranac Lake now heads into a showdown of a pair of 2-0 teams when Moriah visits Wilson Raymond Field Saturday with the opening kickoff slated for 1:30 p.m.

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Saranac Lake 29, Saranac Central 28

SL 6 8 0 15 – 29

SC 7 7 6 8 – 28

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Scoring

First Quarter

SL – Hewitt 6 run (Kick missed), 1:41

SC – H. Devins 21 run (Hamel kick), 12:00

Second Quarter

SL – Hewitt 7 run (Hewitt run), 10:58

SC – Bedard 12 pass from Smith (Hamel kick), 12:00

Third Quarter

SC – Smith 21 run (Kick blocked), 11:02

Fourth Quarter

SL – Hewitt 5 run (Faubert kick), 1:07

SC – Smith 28 run (Hamel pass from Smith), 3:52

SL – Hewitt 19 pass from Roberts (Hewitt run), 10:22

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Individual Statistics

RUSHING

SL – Hewitt 28-140 3TDs, Roberts 3-3, Kratz 3-5, Santiago 5-62, Cope 1-0. Totals: 40-210 3TDs

SC – Smith 10-59 2TDs, H. Devins 23-135 TD. Totals: 33-184 3 TDs

PASSING

SL – Roberts 12-17-0-102 TD

SC – Smith 7-15-0-95 TD

RECEIVING

SL – Santiago 1-16, Ni. Munn 4-3, Hewitt 4-56 TD, Cope 1-8, Faubert 2-19

SC – Fleury 1-6, Spaulding 1-11, Bedard 3-40 TD, Claussen 1-26, H. Devins 1-12

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