It couldn't have worked any better.

The Titans, who had been outscored 81-7 in their previous two games, shocked previously unbeaten Urbana , 27-24, to improve to 6-3 and keep alive their regional playoff hopes.

Urbana (8-1) had not allowed more than seven points in its last five games and only once this season had given up three touchdowns in a game.

"We played horribly the last two weeks and we just went back to the basics," Tuscarora coach Dean Swink said. "We just got simple. We went simple defense and went simple offense."

He said the Titans had gotten away from that in their last few games.

"We tried to trick everybody, out-fancy everybody, out-formation everybody," he said. "One coach made the comment that we weren't executing because they were thinking. So we said let's take the think out of them. We had four running plays tonight and we were going to win or lose with that."

The big running play came with 4:12 left in the game and Urbana up 24-21.

With the ball at the Urbana 25, the Titans' Matt Scott took the handoff and started to go up the middle. But he bounced to the outside and went in for the score that put his team up, 27-24. The extra-point kick failed.

"The play was designed to go inside," Scott said. "The end crashed in and I just bounced out."

He wasn't sure that he made it into the end zone.

"The guy hit my foot and I stumbled," he said. "I dove for the corner of the pylon."

"They didn't surprise me" Urbana coach Joe Conner said of the Titans. "I knew they had a good team, a lot of good players, good coaches."

He said the big problem for the Hawks was tackling.

"We missed a lot of tackles we normally wouldn't miss," he said. "Our tackling is what really hurt us tonight."

Urbana almost came back to tie the game after Scott's touchdown. The Hawks drove from their own 31 to the Tuscarora 26. But a 45-yard field goal attempt fell short with 2:58 left.

The game was close the entire way. Urbana took the initial lead, 7-0, on a 3-yard run by Wes Garey with 4:39 left in the first quarter.

But the Titans scored the next two touchdowns, on a 21-yard pass from Josh Marshall to Bobby Stup and a 40-yard punt return by Quille Giles.

Urbana tied it 14-14 on a 5-yard run by Jesse Heon with 7:22 left in the second quarter. A 21-yard field goal by Josh Rivera gave the Hawks a 17-14 halftime lead.

It didn't last long. The Titans took the second-half kickoff and went 65 yards for a touchdown with Marshall scoring from the 2 with 6:42 left in the quarter.

But, led by sophomore quarterback Michael Spahr, the Hawks went 78 yards for a touchdown with Spahr throwing a 14-yard pass to Aaron Bing on a fourth-and-7 play with 7:22 left in the game. The kick made it 24-21.

Spahr completed six of 10 passes for 64 yards in the drive.

"What I liked about tonight is that we fought the whole way," Conner said. "No matter what happened, we didn't give up."

"Our season had not been going the way we wanted it to," Scott said. "We said, 'We've got to beat Urbana .'"

And, after the stunner, Swink asked rhetorically, "Do you know anybody in the county that thought we could win this game?"

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