SOUTH PARIS — Teven Colon laughed. He was soaking wet and exhausted and had several large boys in green-and-gold chasing him with ill intentions, but he laughed.

Moments later, his Edward Little teammates were laughing with him, celebrating their first win of the season.

Colon laughed while back-pedaling to draw the Oxford Hills defense, then completed a 10-yard screen pass to Brandon Vye what proved to be the game-winning touchdown in the fifth overtime of a dramatic 56-48 victory before a hearty homecoming crowd at Don Gouin Field Saturday.

“I was laughing. That’s what I’m taught to do, laugh at (the defense) on that play, to get their attention, because it’s a screen,” Colon said. “I just lob it up and Vye does his thing.”

“It feels great. We fought the whole time. We didn’t put our heads down,” said a worn out Vye, who carried the ball 35 times for 194 yards and two touchdowns, both in overtime, plus a pair of two-point conversions. “It was all heart, all inside.”

Colon ran for 154 yards and four touchdowns on 26 carries. He also threw for two touchdowns (both in overtime) and ran in two crucial two-point conversions. Jake Hall led the Vikings with 199 yards on 31 carries and five touchdowns, four rushing.

If the Red Eddies (1-4) were going to get into the win column for the first time in 2009, Oxford Hills, which earned its first victory in two years just last week, was going to make them earn it.

“They’re a good football team and they just need to believe that,” Oxford Hills coach Nate Danforth said of his team. “They played their guts out today. Heads up to EL. They wanted it. We played as hard as we could. I don’t doubt that a second.”

With the wet conditions and mistakes by both sides stunting numerous promising drives, the Vikings (1-4) led, 8-6, at the start of the fourth quarter. Then came a deluge of points as the rainfall waned.

After a 37-yard touchdown run by Colon put EL up 20-14 with 1:01 to go, QB Matt Verrier drove the Vikings 44 yards in 53 seconds to tie the game. Verrier’s mad scramble and 14-yard TD pass to Eli Dolloff in the left corner of the end zone with no time left made it 20-20.

EL needed to regroup quickly and stop the conversion to send the game to overtime, and the Eddies overwhelmed the left side of the Vikings’ line to block Hall’s point-after-kick try and keep the score knotted at 20.

“There were times there on the sideline where every single one of us were going ‘Oh, God, you’ve got to be kidding me,” EL coach Darren Hartley said. “Our kids work so hard but we’ve got green kids everywhere. But I don’t think anyone can say they’re young now. Now, they know how to compete. They didn’t stop playing.”

With four downs to score from the 10-yard-line, neither team could stop the other in a marathon overtime session filled with individual heroics. EL christened the first extra session with a 5-yard TD pass from Colon to Zack Henry on fourth down.  Ryan Voye stopped Colon’s two-point run attempt, then the Viking offense answered with a 1-yard TD run by Hall. Hall’s PAT attempt was wide right, though.

Oxford Hills needed just one play in the second OT to put the pressure right back on EL. Hall took a pass from Verrier in the left flat and raced down the sideline for a touchdown, then ran in the two-pointer to make it 34-26. The Eddies matched the Vikes as Colon faked a hand-off to Vye on their first play, then scooted in for a touchdown. Vye’s two-point conversion sent it to the third overtime.

Vye’s 6-yard scoring run and Colon’s two-pointer briefly put the Eddies back on top. Hall assured a fourth stanza with a 5-yard jaunt for six points and another run for two points. 

The Vikings again scored on their first play in the fourth overtime — a 10-yard run by Hall. Mike Lucas stopped Hall on the two-point try. Vye tied it again on a 4-yard run up the middle, but he was stopped when he tried to go up the gut again on the conversion.

Oxford Hills hemmed in the Eddies on their first two plays of the fifth overtime before Colon and Vye hooked up on the game-deciding middle screen. Colon added the two-pointer, but that turned out to be moot.

EL gave Oxford Hills five free yards with an illegal substitution penalty before the Vikes final series even started. But the Eddies buckled down and stopped Hall for no gain and a one-yard loss on first and second down. On third down, Verrier made a pitch to Hall to the right, but the slick ball slipped through his fingertips. The Eddies’ Avery Jackson pounced on it at the 10-yard-line to set off a wild celebration on the visitors’ side of the field.

“When we’re going like we’ve been going, this was hard, and it was made
even harder by a very good Oxford Hills team,” Hartley said. “These
guys have been through so much crap, and I’m just so proud of them and the coaching staff for never quitting.”