GARDINER – After the offensive fireworks of the first half, it seemed Friday night’s crucial Pine Tree Conference finale between Leavitt and Gardiner would come down to which team would come up with the first defensive stop.

As it turned out, it came down to who made the last defensive stop.

Leavitt junior Cam Griffin batted down a quick-out pass intended for Gardiner’s Jake Wright on fourth down at his own 21 with 10 seconds left to preserve a thrilling 28-27 win at Hoch Field.

MDI beat Belfast Friday night, so the Hornets (7-1) will need some help in Saturday’s games to clinch the top seed in the PTC playoffs. The worst they can do is No. 2. Gardiner dropped out of the top spot to 5-2, and will likely be seeded third.

Tyler Green rushed for 135 yards and three touchdowns to lead Leavitt. Forest Chadwick played a spectacular all-around game for Gardiner, rushing for 161 yards and two TDs on 13 carries, catching eight passes for 118 yards and another score, and also completing a halfback option for 47 yards.

Chadwick converted a 4th-and-12 pass from Mike Denham into a first down to keep the Tigers’ final drive alive. Two more passes to Chadwick drove them to the 21, but Leavitt forced two incompletions and the Tigers burned their last timeout with 12.8 seconds remaining, setting up a do-or-die play on fourth down.

“We just dug down and found some extra effort that we’ve never been able to find before,” said senior defensive end Doug Nash. “We knew by the second quarter it was probably going to come down to the last play. It did, and we were ready for it.”

Denham took one step back and tried to connect with Wright in the left flat, but Griffin stepped in and knocked the ball down with his right hand, causing the Leavitt sideline to erupt.

“It was a hitch-and-pitch, but it never got to the internal receiver in time,” Chadwick said. “The defender made a great play to knock it down.”

“They had been running screen after screen and throwbacks. I just stepped in to cover that,” said Griffin. “Coach had gotten on me about that, saying it was coming my way every time, so I just stepped up on that play to knock it down.”

On their previous drive, the Tigers marched to the Leavitt 19 before a holding penalty on Gardiner and Griffin tackles of Chadwick for short gains on back-to-back plays stalled the series at the 36.

“Cam made a couple of big plays in the flat and made a couple of good open-field tackles that really saved us,” Leavitt coach Mike Hathaway said.

Gardiner led 21-20 after a wild first half. Chadwick set the tone with a 40-yard return of the opening kickoff to midfield. He then took the handoff on the first play from scrimmage off left tackle to the end zone for a quick 7-0 lead.

Green answered with a 30-yard run on the Hornets’ first play from scrimmage that set up their first score, a one-yard plunge by Green.

Leavitt converted a 4th-and-6 on its next drive when Josh Strickland made a nice sliding catch of an Eric Theiss pass at the Gardiner four. Green took it in from there to make it 14-7. The Tigers responded quickly with a three-play, 61-yard jaunt capped by Chadwick’s 31-yard TD run.

Dalton Eldridge gave the Tigers the lead with a three-yard scoring run on fourth down. Theiss made runs of 27, seven, and 19 yards on Leavitt’s ensuing possession to set up Green’s TD run from a yard out.

Leavitt missed the PAT, so Gardiner kept the lead and missed a golden opportunity to widen the margin just before half after Chadwick completed his halfback option pass to Wright down to the Leavitt 7. With the clock ticking down, Denham inexplicably took a knee rather than spike the ball, and the clock ran out.

The start of the second half brought more of the same back-and-forth action. Two Gardiner defenders slipped as Strickland hauled in a Theiss pass on 4th-and-8 and ran it in for a 38-yard touchdown. Theiss ran in the two-point conversion to make it 28-21.

Thanks to what at the time looked like a rare stop by their defense, the Tigers only needed to drive 25 yards to answer on their second possession of the half. Chadwick caught an eight-yard pass from Denham to make it 28-27, but Tom Cook’s extra point attempt clanged off the left upright.

“We needed to make some adjustments on defense at halftime,” Hathaway said. “It was a matter of putting guys in a better position to make plays, and the guys did a really good job of carrying that out on the field.”