In the evening chill of fifty degrees on the field, the inten­si­ty of the game grew as Coach David­son shed his blue Faith Bap­tist var­si­ty jack­et. The Cubs were mid­way through the first quar­ter and eager to make a come­back. On their third dri­ve, they attempt­ed a screen pass, a play that had seen suc­cess in pri­or games but strug­gled against Faith Bap­tist pre­vi­ous­ly. This time, how­ev­er, it appeared to work flaw­less­ly. Trevin, the quar­ter­back, let the defend­ers rush by before rolling right and deliv­er­ing a well-timed pass to Cody, who sprint­ed down the side­lines. Cody gained thir­ty yards before being pushed out of bounds—only for a yel­low flag to nul­li­fy the achieve­ment due to a hold­ing call on Jory. The set­back was dis­heart­en­ing, forc­ing the Cubs back to their own twen­ty.

Hop­ing to regain momen­tum, they tried a dar­ing play with Gio Vis­co, who was open for a touch­down. Trevin, unfor­tu­nate­ly, over­threw him in a poor­ly exe­cut­ed pass, caus­ing Gio to express his frus­tra­tion. Alarmed at the sequence of neg­a­tive plays—an inter­cep­tion, a penal­ty, and a missed opportunity—Trevin focused on refo­cus­ing his game.

To sta­bi­lize the team, the Cubs repeat­ed­ly hand­ed the ball to Cody, who pushed through the Faith line, but by the time they reached the twen­ty-eight-yard line, Cody was vis­i­bly strug­gling from the impacts of the game. Fac­ing fourth down with four yards to go, Coach Adams decid­ed to press on with anoth­er run, call­ing for Trevin to keep the ball and run left. How­ev­er, the Faith defend­ers antic­i­pat­ed the play and con­verged on Trevin, leav­ing him no choice but to backpedal.

Rec­og­niz­ing one defend­er had left his assign­ment, Trevin exe­cut­ed a quick men­tal cal­cu­la­tion and, just before being tack­led, launched what would be remem­bered as a “Hail Mary.” Remark­ably, Gio was in the right place to catch the des­per­ate throw at the ten-yard line. He man­aged to scram­ble to the two before being tack­led, bring­ing the Cubs to first and goal. Trevin’s throw, a mix of instinct and skill, breathed life into the game, and on the next play, Cody dove into the end zone for a touch­down. After a failed two-point con­ver­sion attempt, the Cubs pulled ahead with a score of 14–12 as the first quar­ter neared its end.