With the outcome still in doubt and the trophy up for grabs, the Friday Harbor football team and the Orcas Vikings took the field to slug it out in sudden-death as the 20th annual Island Cup went into extra innings with the score knotted at 14 apiece Saturday at Dahl Field on Orcas Island.

Trailing by seven points almost the entire game, Orcas put another seven points up on the board that would send the inter-island grudge match into overtime as sophomore quarterback Robby Padbury and senior wide-out Tyler Dippenbrock hooked up on a perfectly placed touchdown pass in the back-corner of the end zone with 4:18 left in regulation.

“The kids played a great game and they played hard,” Head Coach Dennis Dahl said. “That’s what we wanted to do. I couldn’t have asked anymore of them.”

The Wolverines had a chance to put the game away in regulation. But with three seconds left on the clock, senior Mike Ausilio’s 22-yard field-goal attempt fell two yards shy of clearing the uprights and the players on the Vikings’ sidelines and fans in the bleachers erupted in jubilation at the prospect of reclaiming the trophy with a victory in overtime in the season-opener for both teams.

It was not to be.

In overtime, a sudden-death format wherein each team gets a single-set of downs and takes the first snap at the 25-yard line, the boys in black and blue proved no match for the superior size and the strength of the Wolverines in the trenches. Friday Harbor moved the chains, and then tallied what proved to be the game-winning touchdown as junior Roy Taylor swept into the end zone from 12 yards out on the team’s fourth-consecutive running play, putting the Wolverines out in front 21-14. Taylor tallied two TDs on the ground in the game.

The ball exchanged hands and the Vikings took their shot. But on the team’s second-play from scrimmage, senior defensive end Parker Lawson sacked Padbury for a 10-yard loss that put the home team in a huge hole. It proved to be the pivotal play in overtime as the Vikings were unable to make up ground and the Wolverines secondary gobbled up a “Hail Mary” pass by Padbury on fourth down, from 35 yards out, to seal the win.

With the win, a 21-14 victory, the Wolverines clinched their sixth straight Island Cup win to match the Vikings for the most consecutive wins in the 20-year history of the annual inter-island rivalry. Friday Harbor leads the series 13-7 overall.