Owen Hall said everyone around believes in second chances.

“They tell me to keep your head up and there’s more time to play,” Hall said.

After just missing a 46-yard field goal with 10 seconds left Saturday night at Bethlehem Area School District Stadium that could have won the game, Hall got a surprising second chance just seven seconds later.

Rather than play it safe and run out the clock and prepare for overtime, Bethlehem Catholic attempted a pass.

Junior Jackson Medlar came from behind to strip the ball from Golden Hawks’ quarterback Axel Burkart. Fellow junior Connor Nowroski fell on the loose ball at the Becahi 10.

Hall returned to the field with three seconds and was perfect on a 27-yard field goal that gave Nazareth a stunning 52-49 Eastern Pennsylvania Conference Northampton County Division win in one of the most memorable games of this, and many other seasons.

It was ironic that in a game that featured 101 points and more than 1,000 yards on offense that a defensive would be the difference.

But that’s football, particularly at the high school level when teams with 6-1 records at the start of the night come to battle.

“It was a crazy night,” Nazareth coach Tom Falzone said. “We told the kids this was playoff game No. 1. All of our goals are in front of us and it starts with going for the division title. You lose this game and you lose the head-to-head when you’re talking about the division. We treated it like a playoff game.”

And, at times, it felt more like a heavyweight as the teams traded drive after drive.

When it mattered most, however, it was Nazareth’s defense that got the stops.

Matt Leluga opened the scoring with a 32-yard interception return for a touchdown.

Then at the end of the first half, Becahi had the ball at the Nazareth 3 and instead of going for what would have been a routine field goal, the Golden Hawks went for a touchdown, but Becahi quarterback Axel Burkart was pressured and threw an incomplete pass to keep the score at Golden Hawks 28-21 at halftime.

At the end of regulation, it looked like Becahi might just take a knee and go to overtime.

Instead, Burkart, who threw for 353 yards, was looking for one more big play.

Instead, the play was made by Medlar.

“Honestly, I was surprised about the whole thing,” Medlar said. “I just saw the ball snapped and I just ran. You just can’t ever give up until the whistle stops. I was getting a lot of pressure [on Burkart] most of the night. On that last play, I was coming from the backside and I just ended up there somehow. I just hit from behind as his arm was going back. I rolled him and he dropped the ball and [Nowroski] recovered it.”

Becahi coach Joe Bernard had no regrets about not running out the clock.

“No, not at all,” he said. “Am I supposed to predict we’re going to turn the ball over? Both teams made a lot of plays as we thought would happen. There was a lot of skill on both sides of the ball. At the end of the day, we made too mistakes with some key 15-yard penalties and turnovers.

“My philosophy is stay aggressive. We’re playing one of the top teams in Class 6A in the state. You have to score points to win a game like this and we wanted to stay after it. That doesn’t change anything for me.”

More story to come.

Scoring summary

Nazareth 7 – 14 – 14 – 17 — 52

Becahi 14 – 14 – 7 – 14 — 49

FIRST QUARTER

N: Matt Leluga 32 interception return (Owen Hall kick) 10:28

B: Justin Martinez 76 run (Evan Schultz kick), 10:06

B: Carter Vassa 2 run (Schultz kick), 3:05

SECOND QUARTER

N: Will Bacolo 4 run (Hall kick), 10:25

B: Vassa 62 run (Schultz kick), 10:06

B: Axel Burkart 1 run (Schultz kick), 4:44

N: Lance Zuercher 6 run (Hall kick) 0:56

THIRD QUARTER

B: Armando Thom 8 pass from Axel Burkart (Schultz kick), 4:44

N: Matt Leluga 89 pass from Cooper Madson (Hall kick), 3:53

N: Bacolo 4 run (Hall kick), 1:44

FOURTH QUARTER

B: Martinez 9 run (Schultz kick), 9:35

N: Zuercher 13 pass from DiPietro (Hall kick), 6:00

N: Bacolo 14 run (Hall kick) 5:05

B: Vassa 16 pass from Burkart (Schultz kick), 2:07

N: Hall 27 field goal, 0:00

Individual stats

RUSHING

Nazareth (37-136): Will Bacolo 30-134, 3 TDs; Cooper Madson 3-(-20); Lance Zuercher 3-19, TD; Cooper Wenrich 1-3.

Becahi (17-184): Justin Martinez 7-92, 2 TDs; Axel Burkart 5-3, TD; Carter Vassa 4-83, 2 TDs; Antonio Salamoni 1-6.

PASSING

Nazareth: Madson 24-32-1, 361 yards, TD; Luke DiPietro 1-1-0, 13 yards, TD.

Becahi: Burkart 16-31-2, 353 yards, 2 TDs.

RECEPTIONS

Nazareth: DiPietro 14-148; Matt Leluga 4-160; Bacolo 4-37, TD; Zuercher 3-29, TD.

Becahi: Vassa 9-244, TD; Tyre Lewis 3-50; Martinez 2-43; Salamoni 1-8; Thom 1-8, TD.