One week after Ryan Aplin seemingly cheated fate with his brilliant improvisation, fate's bill came due, and Fleming Island paid in full as its Cinderella season came to an end in a dramatic 28-26 regional championship playoff loss at Bartram Trail.
Yet, even in the final minutes of Friday night's loss, when defeat seemed all but certain, the Golden Eagles still sat inexplicably poised to pull yet another rabbit out of their hat.
Trailing 28-12 with just 9:22 to play, Dee Frieson launched the second of his two 50-yard kickoff returns to the Bartram Trail 44 and followed it up with two receptions for 38 yards before Aplin once again hopped upon his scramble cycle at the 10-yard line and led Bear defenders on a merry chase to and fro that ended up with him in the end zone and the Eagles behind only 28-20 with 7:24 remaining.
But Clemson-bound senior QB Kyle Parker and the unpredictable Bears offense began an 11-play drive to the Fleming Island 15 and were lined up for a 32-yard field goal attempt that would ice the game when the Golden Eagles found yet another way to try to snatch victory out of the mouth of defeat.
Bears kicker Will Goebel launched a strong, but low kick toward the uprights as Golden Eagle safety Colton Longden crashed through the Bartram defenses to not only block the attempt, but to also pick it up and ramble 70 yards the opposite direction for a TD that brought Fleming Island within 28-26.
Salmon Williams, who was able to run the two-pointer in on the previous TD, was stopped cold on his second attempt, and it seemed that, with just 3:05 to play, the Golden Eagles were unlikely to pull this one out.
Not so fast.
Senior kicker Nathan Branz, a usually reliable leg for the Eagles who had a nightmare of a night with two missed extra points and a missed field goal, came through with a hard-to-handle onside kick that freshman Austin Sweatt pounced on to give the Golden Eagles a first down at the 50 with about three minutes still left to play.
But facing third and five with two minutes left, a battered and limping Aplin launched a long, floating pass against a speedy Bartram secondary that's made a living all year on INTs. And, thus, a phenomenal season, made possible in large part by this quarterback's split-second decisions, came to an end.
"It never comes down to being one particular thing," Fleming Island head coach Neal Chipoletti said about the interception. "... We knew coming in here that they have a tremendously talented offensive football team. ... You can't mis-serve. We had a fumble in the end zone; we had a field goal blocked, or missed. We just had too many missed opportunities on offense. And you can't do that in a regional final game against a team this calibre and expect to win."
That being said, Chipoletti added, "Our kids never quit. They fought all the way. How we got back in the game in the end was just a tribute to what these kids have done this year."