“We needed somebody to step up,” Grayson said. “I chose to step up.”
“That was weird,” Badin coach Nick Yordy said about the pass interference penalties. “We were glad they threw the flag. We did not play very well in the first half, but we were able to overcome it. We hardly had the ball in the second half.”
The two teams went into the game tied for first in the division. Alter seemed poised to take over the top spot with what would have been an historic win after sophomore running back Noah Jones scored on a 10-yard run with 2:03 left in the game.
“We helped them out,” Alter coach Ed Domsitz said. “We gave it away. It was a hell of an effort. You’ve got to be able to stop them on that last drive. We left too much time on the clock. We gave a quality effort. This one will be tough to live with. We hurt ourselves. You’ve got to keep your cool. You’ve got to maintain your poise.
“We wanted to make it a four-quarter game. We figured if we could keep it close and get to the fourth quarter, we’d have a shot.”
Badin (8-0, 3-0), the No. 2 team in the Associated Press Division III poll, is scheduled to close out the regular season with league games at Chaminade-Julienne and McNicholas.
Alter is scheduled to be at Fenwick on Friday and at Chaminade-Julienne on Oct. 20.
“I think they’re going to win a lot of games come tournament time,” Nick Yordy said of Alter.
Badin’s regular-season win streak, which started after a 17-3 loss at Chaminade-Julienne in 2019, isn’t something the Rams focus on, Grayson said.
“We try to not get a big head,” he said. “We try to take it one game at a time.”
That being said, Grayson added, “This win was big.”
Badin needed fewer than four minutes to take a 7-0 lead on senior running back Zach Yordy’s 2-yard touchdown run with 8:09 left in the first quarter.
A Grayson fumble helped set up Alter’s first score, a 3-yard run by junior quarterback Gavin Connor that capped a 14-play drive and consumed more than eight minutes. Badin committed three penalties on the conversion attempt before Connor plunged 1 yard for the two points.
Connor connected with 5senior wide receiver Andy Duplain for a 14-yard touchdown that gave Alter the halftime lead. Zach Yordy broke free for a 50-yard touchdown run on Badin’s first play of the second half to give Badin the lead, and senior quarterback Alex Ritzie added a 51-yard scoring pass to senior wide receiver Aidan Brown for a 23-15 lead 3:52 left in the third quarter.
Badin avoided another Alter score after allowing Knights senior Collin Wehner to recover the loose football on a kickoff following senior Tony Arcuri’s 23-yard field goal with 9:09 left in the game. Senior linebacker Drew Enginger led a group of Badin defenders who stopped Jones on fourth-and-goal from the 3-yard line.
“We’re going to miss those seniors,” Nick Yordy said on Badin’s Senior Night.
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