Seneca football coach Terry Maxwell, his team ahead by a touchdown, had a tough decision to make with just under five minutes to play in Friday’s 35-28 win over host Genoa-Kingston.

The Irish had the ball at the Cogs 39, but faced a fourth and 4, and the hosts had already shown they could move the ball with three scoring drives.

“I called the timeout because I wanted some time to think about what I wanted to do,” Maxwell said. “I felt like our defense had kind of woken up a little bit, so there was part of me that was thinking punt it deep to challenge them a little bit. That said I also trust my offensive guys. So, I asked them, ‘What do you want to do?’ Not one guy said punt it.

“Everyone in the stadium knew the ball was going to (Cam) Shriey and he made a great play.”

Shriey, a senior running back who led Seneca (4-0) with 128 yards on 18 carries in the game and had already run a fake punt for a first down on the drive, looked to have been slowed down, but then leaped a defender to get the first down.

He then finished off the 19-play, 70-yard, drive that covered over 11 minutes with a 1-yard TD to make it 35-21.

G-K drove to get the score back with 9 seconds left on a Cody Cravatta to Blake Ides 19-yard pass, but the ensuing onside kick went out of bounds and Seneca kneeled on the last play.

“We talked about how it’s easy to be positive when things are going right, but when things aren’t going your way how do you handle it? Do you handle it the same way?” Maxwell said. “Our guys really stepped up and showed what they are made of in the second half.”

Seneca led 14-0 after the opening quarter on a 63-yard TD run by Ethan Othon, and after the Irish’s Chase Rod recovered a pooched kickoff, a plunge by QB Gunner Varland.

Cogs took advantage of an interception by Jaiden Lee and a fumble in the second quarter to tie the game at the half. After the INT, G-K drove 96 yards in 14 plays ending with a 1-yard TD run by Owen Zaccard. Then Zaccard’s rush from the run with 18 seconds remaining tied the contest.

“I’m very proud of the resiliency our guys showed tonight,” Genoa-Kingston coach Cam Davekos said, his team falling to 1-3. “We got down 14-0 right off the bat and a lot of teams would have folded, would have said, ‘Oh, here we go again.’ These guys fought back and gave it everything they have. That’s all you can ask for.

“We made some defense adjustments at halftime, but I feel we were just overpersuading, missing tackles that we should make. We had a couple times on Seneca’s last drive where missed tackles allowed them to keep going.”

Seneca opened the second half with TD, this one a 61-yard dash by Liam Knoebel, but the 2-point run failed. G-K countered with a TD run from the 15 by Anthony Gum, with Adrian Leon adding the PAT kick to give the hosts a 21-20 lead.

After the teams traded punts, the Irish took the lead for good with a minute left in the third quarter on an 11-yard jaunt by Shriey to make it 28-21.

Shriey was followed on the stat sheet by Othon (12 carries, 114 yards) and Knoebel (8-87). Seneca finished with 389 ground yards on 54 attempts.

“This one means a lot,” Othon said. “(G-K) plays in a very good conference and are a solid team. We had some adversity tonight because of them. They made things tough on us. It was a dogfight for sure.

“We had so many guys stepped up. It’s fun winning games, but extra fun when you can win games were you really had to fight for everything you got.”

Zaccard had 62 of the Cogs’ 137 rushing yards on 16 carries. Cravatta ended 11-of-18 for 134 yards passing, his favorite targets in Ides (6 catches, 61 yards) and Benjamin Kleba (4-70).

Next week Seneca hosts Dwight in a Chicagoland Prairie game, while Genoa-Kingston hosts North Boone in a Big Northern contest.