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Saturday, December 11
 
Miles' overtime TD locks up title for NW Missouri

FLORENCE, Ala. (AP) -- This year's Division II championship will go down as the longest, highest-scoring title game in NCAA history. To Northwest Missouri State, it was just another comeback.

Northwest's Travis Miles threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to J.R. Hill in the fourth overtime Saturday and the defense held as the Bearcats rallied from a fourth-quarter deficit to defeat Carson-Newman 58-52 for the championship.

The win was just more of the same for the Bearcats, who came from behind to win all three of their playoff games on the way to the finals.

"This is just unbelievable," said Miles, who had five touchdown passes. "It was just an amazing game, and I've never played in one like it."

No one had.

With the game tied at 52, Northwest (14-1) got the ball first in the fourth overtime. Hill, who keyed the Northwest comeback by catching two TD passes in the fourth quarter from Miles, leaped over a defender for the final score. Miles was sacked on the 2-point attempt.

Working from the 12 after a first down, the Eagles (13-1) went to Antwon Oliver, who already had two touchdowns and 194 yards. But Oliver lost the ball, and Northwest's Ryan Miller recovered to seal the win.

"I was just trying to fight for extra yards instead of going down," Oliver said. "I was just stripped of the ball."

Northwest players and fans swarmed the field at Braly Municipal Stadium, dancing and waving flags after the more than four-hour marathon.

Shocked, Oliver and his teammates laid on the turf in disbelief. Carson-Newman, which lost last year's title game 24-6 to Northwest -- had led 24-7 at the half.

But the Eagles gave up 30 fourth-quarter points to Northwest, including two on touchdown passes of 34 and 7 yards from Miles to Hill and a 7-yard pass from Miles to Tony Miles. Tony Miles, who isn't related to the quarterback, also returned a kickoff 81 yards for a TD.

"Coming into the game we knew they had come back in the fourth quarter, so we knew we had to put some points on the board to help the defense out," Carson-Newman quarterback Leonard Guyton said.

The 110 points scored by the two teams broke the NCAA scoring record set last year in the Division I-AA game, when Massachusetts defeated Georgia Southern 55-43.

No NCAA title game had gone past one overtime before -- let alone making it to four -- and it seemed like this one would go on forever at times.

In the first overtime, Northwest held Carson-Newman on its possession, with Frank Taylor recovering a mishandled pitch at the 14 to end the Eagle threat. Northwest's David Purnell was then wide left on a 36-yard field goal.

The kickers then missed wide left on a pair of field goals in the second overtime: a 45-yard attempt by Purnell, who kick was partially blocked by Chris Butler, and a 33-yard try by Carson-Newman's Ryan Fleming.

The scored was knotted at 52 after three overtimes. Oliver scored on a 1-yard run for Carson-Newman, and Guyton's keeper was good for 2 points. But Northwest answered, with Tony Miles scoring on a 15-yard run and Travis Miles competing a 2-point pass to Steve Comer.

Travis Miles threw five touchdown passes in all, including a 20-yard score to Seneca Holmes. He also threw three interceptions, two of which led to Carson-Newman touchdowns, in going 24-of-45 for 298 yards.

Ques Rumph scored on a dazzling 86-yard punt return for Carson-Newman. Melvin Oates added two touchdowns on 1-yard runs, and David Jansen scored an 18-yard touchdown.




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