Best Powder Puff Football 'Fanale' Ever!

It was a grand "Fanale," indeed.

In what was arguably the most dramatic Powder Puff football game in the long, hallowed history of Geneva High School sports, the seniors defeated a valiant junior team in triple overtime—a wild 21-14 come-from-behind victory sealed with an interception by a senior named Stevie Fanale.

Mady Temple scored the winning touchdown, a sweep around right end in the senior team's third try at sudden death. But that was just the pre-Fanale finale.

The real dramatics came at the end of regulation.

With 18 seconds remaining and the seniors trailing 14-7, the game appeared to be all but over. The seniors ran the final play, the buzzer sounded, and the juniors began the celebration of their upset win ...

Too soon.

Though the buzzer sounded, the play wasn't dead, and Temple ran 50 yards (we're guessing—the field was shortened to 80 yards) for a jaw-dropping, ear-popping senior touchdown. This scribe already invoked Keith Jackson's famous exclamation in , but it bears repeating: Whoa, Nellie!

Both teams went four-and-out in the first OT. In the second, the seniors scored an apparent victory with a Rachel Hinchman touchdown run, but the juniors tied it after a tipped pass was caught in the back of the end zone to set up the dramatic final stanza.

In the preliminary games, the seniors defeated the freshmen 7-0 in overtime and the juniors defeated the sophomores 14-0.

* Editor's note: There is no crying in baseball and there are no programs (at least, none I could find) in Powder Puff football. So at 11 p.m., I did my best with some phonetic spellings. Parents and friends, came to the rescue Thursday morning, and I think most are correct now. If you see any name spellings that need correcting or if you want to add IDs to the photo cutlines, e-mail rickn@patch.com, and we'll make the adjustments posthaste. And if there's time on Thursday, we'll add video, as well.