Traven Atterberry’s late score lifts Genoa-Kingston to upset of Stillman Valley

STILLMAN VALLEY — The Genoa-Kingston Cogs and Stillman Valley Cardinals battled back and forth to the end, but it was the underdog Cogs that came out on top. The visitors muscled their way to an upset of the undefeated Stillman Valley Cardinals 32-28.

“It was the best thing ever, actually,” said Cogs’ running back Traven Atterberry, who had a late score to secure the win. “I was just thinking about my team and the victory.”

With the Cogs down 28-25 and 8 minutes left in the game, they started their final march toward the end zone. The Cogs ground down the field on 12 running plays to set up a third and goal from the 3.

Atterberry pushed his way across the goal line to put the Cogs up 32-28 with two and half minutes left in the game. For Atterberry, it was his third touchdown of the game. He finished the game with 15 rushes for 122 yards to go along with the three scores.

The Cardinals (8-1,8-1) then marched all the way from their 3-yard line down to the Cogs 25 with 30 seconds left in the game. They tried three straight passes into the end zone. The first one was knocked away by the Cogs and the other two went wide of the mark to end the game.

The Cogs took their first lead of the game in the third quarter after recovering a fumble by the Cardinals.

The Cogs took a sack on the first play of the drive, but were bailed out by a Cardinal penalty. Brody Engel then ripped off a 14-yard run to get the Cogs to the 1-yard line before he finished off the drive on the next play. That put the Cogs up 25-21 with 26 seconds left in the third quarter.

The Cardinals answered on their next drive with a 34-yard touchdown run by Porter Needs to put them back in front 28-25 with eight and a half minutes left in the game.

“We had to make sure that we take a deep breath,” Cogs coach Cameron Davekos said. “We said that in one of our huddles coming off the field. Take a deep breath and do what we do, which is play hard, hard assignment sound football.”

The Cardinals took an early lead in the game thanks to a 64-yard touchdown run by Braden Engel on the Cardinals first possession.

“You enjoy getting the scores and that sort of thing, but as I think about it our defense was out on the field for most of the night,” Cardinals’ coach Mike Lalor said. “When you have one play drive, then the defense was right back out on the field. It was nice to see, though.”

The Cogs (7-2,7-2) fumbled on the ensuing kickoff and set the Cardinals up with a short field. Owen Zitkus made the Cogs pay for their mistake with a three-yard touchdown run with only three minutes off the clock in the game.

“We have a mentality of bend don’t break and we bent pretty hard going down 14 to nothing, but we didn’t break and we trusted each other,” Davekos said.

The Cogs battled back with a heavy dose of Maddox Lavender, who carried the ball seven times on the next drive, including a three-yard dive into the end zone.

On the very next play from scrimmage, the Cardinals broke another long run with Zitkus going 80 yards to the house.