A game of inches and seconds came down to 92 yards Friday night in Shannon.

After holding off Southeast Whitfield for nearly and entire game, the Model Blue Devils suddenly found themselves tied 14-14 with the visiting Raiders with 9.9 seconds left in the game.

Zack Baker, a sophomore, fielded the ensuing kickoff for the Blue Devils on the eight-yard line and bolted down the field.

He didn’t stop until he got to the end zone and was celebrating a 20-14 win with his teammates.

“That was it,” Model coach Gordon Powers said. “I guess it’s never over til it’s over and it seemed like we waited until the last nine seconds to have a big burst.”

“All I was thinking was take it to the house,” Baker said. “I’ve got a lot of people blocking for me and I appreciate every one of them.”

The dynamic end to a long night for the Region 7-AA Blue Devils (1-1) gave them their first win of the season and sent the Class AAA Raiders (0-2) still searching for theirs.

“It was a great return with great blocking and the kids reached down and got a little bit on it,” Powers said. “I’m proud of them for that.”

Blake Garab spearheaded a fast opening drive for the Blue Devils that saw the home squad barrel down Southeast Whitfield on a 73-yard march.

Garab had runs of 12 and 24 yards while Jamie Palmer carried the ball for 19 yards along the way.

Garab got the handoff again from seven yards out and Joel Poulicek’s first of two extra points put Model up 7-0 with 8:07 to go in the first quarter.

“That was important because we talked all week about finishing drive and not having any turnovers and that’s what we did,” Powers said.

“When you look back on the whole game, that made a big difference.”

Southeast Whitfield broke through Model’s defense to post six points on the first drive of the second quarter with a 14-yard pass from Tanner McCutcheon to Damond O’Neal.

Model blocked the PAT and the score remained 7-6 until early in the fourth when the Blue Devils went up 14-6 with a 74-yard touchdown reception by Desmond Brown.

The Raiders then used some timely and tough passes to drive 70 yards and use an 18-yard pass from McCutcheon to Jeremy Bishop to pull within two with 15 seconds remaining.

The pass to Josh West in the end zone gave them the conversion to force Model into thinking about overtime but Baker’s incredible run capped the game in regulation.