By Craig Dunn
Logan Daily News
LOGAN — To say the least, the Logan Chieftains haven't gotten a whole lot of breaks in what's been one of the program's most difficult seasons in many years.

And even when they were presented with — and capitalized upon — one of the biggest breaks you could ever expect to get, they still just couldn't get over the hump.

Portsmouth's Zaide Whitley scored all 24 of his team's points, including a 17-yard field goal to conclude double-overtime, to lift the Trojans to a thrilling — and somewhat surreal — 24-21 Southeastern Ohio Athletic League victory over the host Chieftains Friday night in Logan Chieftain Stadium.

After never having played a double-overtime game since OT was implemented in the late 1980s, the Chiefs played two of them to bookend a three-game homestand... and dropped both of them.

Whitley was a one-man wrecking crew for the Trojans, scoring on an 8-yard run, catching a pair of touchdown passes from quarterback Mason Jordan, kicking three extra points and the aforementioned field goal in a game that Portsmouth (3-6 overall, 2-3 SEOAL) looked to have locked up late in regulation.

With Logan's offense having stagnated — the result of injuries to running backs Cory McCarty and Nick Maniskas — the Trojans led 14-7 and had the ball first and goal on the Logan 1-yard line with under three minutes remaining in regulation. Some points of any kind would no doubt put the game away.

But Logan's defense came through with a terrific goal-line stand and the Trojans could not punch the ball across the goal line for a clinching touchdown on the first two plays.

Then, on third and goal, the Trojans' Duke Edwards fumbled going around right end. Logan's Sean Wotring scooped up the ball at the Portsmouth 10 and, with a Logan Senior Night crowd on its feet screaming at this unbelievable turn of events, set sail for the opposite goal line.

He rambled and weaved his way 85 yards before Jordan saved a touchdown — momentarily, at least — at the Portsmouth 5.

On the Chiefs' first play from scrimmage, sophomore Nick Kost scored almost untouched on a run up the middle — his first varsity touchdown — and Wotring booted the extra point to tie the game 14-14 with 2:25 left.

“The irony of it is, I said 'let's not be heroes here — if we can't punch it in, let's just kick a field goal and go up 17-7 and we'll be fine,' ” Portsmouth coach Curt Clifford said afterward. “And as soon as he bounced it outside, I saw the ball on the ground.

“Honestly, though, it should never have come down to that,” he added. “We're what, eight inches from a touchdown and we can't score with first-and-goal? That sits back on the offensive line — we can't get a push. We have three sophomores on the offensive line, and when you have that, and when you're playing a physical football team, that's going to happen.”

The moral of the story for the Trojans?

“I told the guys that if you're going to learn a lesson from this game,” Clifford said, “get in the weight room.”

“We definitely were down and out for a long time,” said Logan coach Kelly Wolfe. “Give our defense credit — they kept us in the game. Two great goal-line stands, and they kept fighting.

“We had talked all week about the fact that Portsmouth does have mental lapses, that they do have breakdowns, and we thought they were due for one,” he added. “We just needed to be ready to capitalize when it happened — and we did. When they dropped the ball, Sean was ready and made a great scoop.”

Still, the Trojans got one last chance to win in regulation, driving to the Logan 17 in the waning seconds before a 33-yard field goal by Whitley went wide right.

On the first play from scrimmage in overtime, Edwards was thrown for a four-yard loss and didn't get up. He was taken off the field on a stretcher and flown via medical helicopter to a Columbus hospital for precautionary reasons.

When play resumed about 15 minutes later, Jordan threw an incomplete pass before hitting a wide-open Whitley in the back right corner of the end zone for a 24-yard touchdown to put Portsmouth ahead.

Undaunted, the battered and undermanned Chieftains — playing with a backfield of three sophomores who started the season on the junior varsity team — scored the equalizer four plays later, with Isaac Schmeltzer taking a pitchout 10 yards around left end to paydirt for his first varsity TD.

Wotring kicked the extra point, as did Whitley on the Trojans' OT touchdown, to knot the score again at 21-21 and send the game to a second extra session.

When the Chiefs lost 40-34 to Warren in double OT two weeks ago, Logan answered a touchdown by Warren in the first overtime and Wolfe thought about going for a 2-point conversion to win it.

The same thought went through his head last night.

“I thought about going for two,” he said, “but (Portsmouth) had been fumbling a lot of snaps and I thought they might make another mistake.”

Logan was unable to move the ball to open the second overtime and, on fourth down, sophomore quarterback Jack Music was intercepted by L.J. Adams to end the drive.

Then, on the second Portsmouth play of the second OT, Jordan scrambled away from a potential sack and found a seam long enough to connect with that man Whitley on the right sideline for 19 yards to the Logan 1-yard line.

Jordan “made a play on third down. We had some decent pressure on him and flushed him,” Wolfe stated. “He made a play. That's what you would expect senior quarterbacks to do for you.”

Again, however, the Logan defense stood tall and the Trojans could not cross the goal line. Jordan was stopped for no gain on a quarterback sneak, then had to fall on a bad snap from center — one of several the Trojans dealt with all night — for a 6-yard loss to the Logan 7.

Following another incomplete pass, Whitley came on to attempt a 22-yard field goal and made the kick to apparently win the game. However. Logan was called for being offside and the ball was moved to the Logan 3.

The Trojans then won the game when Whitley's 17-yard field goal — the holder knelt at the 7-yard line — sailed through the uprights despite the Chiefs' best efforts to block it.

And thus the Chieftains (1-8, 1-3) failed to win a home game in a full season for just the second time in school history, with 1953 being the other. All of Logan's home games in 1978 were canceled with the exception of a 6-6 tie with New Lexington as the result of the LHS teacher's strike in 1978.

The Chiefs have been decimated by injuries and suspensions the latter portion of the season, particularly the last few days.

Lucas Branson broke a bone in his foot on Thursday and watched the game from the sidelines on crutches. McCarty, who rushed for 212 yards and four touchdowns against the Trojans last season, injured a knee early in the second quarter and was on crutches on the sidelines later in the evening. Maniskas, who came in to play in place of McCarty, sustained a neck injury in the third quarter and when the game ended was on the sidelines with his neck in a brace.

Paul Wesselhoeft was not 100 percent physically last night, according to Wolfe, and senior quarterback Kelly Long has been suspended from the team for the rest of the season.

Thus, for most of the second half, the Chiefs had a backfield of Music at QB, Kost at fullback and Schmeltzer at halfback — tenth-graders who started the season on the junior varsity squad.

Music threw a nifty 35-yard touchdown pass to Wotring late in the first quarter to account for the Chiefs' first touchdown.

“One of the coaches even said it on the headset: sophomore, sophomore, sophomore in the backfield, coach,” Wolfe said. “Isaac was ready. He struggled early in the season, but he kept working and buckled down and got rewarded for it tonight.

“McCarty was sick on Wednesday and we had Maniskas running at tailback,” he added. “We told Isaac he needed to get some reps at tailback with Nick... just in case. It's funny how that works out sometimes.”

Like the Chieftains, the Trojans have also had their share of struggles this season, but Clifford said his team wasn't too far from breaking through.

“We've lost four games by 28 points — and lost in overtime to Wilmington — and our guys have been right on the cusp,” said Clifford, the dean of SEOAL coaches, currently in his 26th season as Portsmouth head coach. “We've really only been handled twice (by Jackson and Warren). Against Warren, their quarterback could have been blindfolded that night and he was still going to find a receiver, he was that on.

“We've struggled at times this year, but we play hard,” he added. “Our kids play like a bunch of maniacs — but we don't always play smart. That's something we've been harping on with these guys: let's play smart, hard-nosed football. We've got the hard-nosed part down... but, boy, do we make some silly mistakes. Whoa! We've had enough mistakes this season to last me a career.”

Meanwhile, for the Chiefs, it's been a season that seems like it's lasted as long as Clifford's coaching career. And now they have so many walking wounded that it's hard to tell who will be on the field for them in next week's season finale at Chillicothe.

“We'll have to see what happens and see who's even available on Monday,” Wolfe said. “Another double-overtime game. I thought we were out of it, down and out, but you just have to keep fighting. And we did.”