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GREENSBORO - Fritz Hessenthaler smiled as his youngest daughter tossed a Nerf football to herself in the west end zone of the Southeast Guilford football field late Friday night.

She's got a lot of practicing to do if she wants to duplicate the play that took place there just moments before, a miraculous 33-yard touchdown pass with less than a minute remaining that gave Southeast a 21-14 win over Southern Guilford.

"That," Hessenthaler said, "was the most incredible thing I've ever seen on a football field."

We'll do our best to explain.

Southern scored late in the fourth quarter to tie the game at 14, but Southeast took the ensuing kickoff and started marching back downfield. Normally, we'd say they were trying to beat the clock, but a mechanical failure in the scoreboard meant the referees on the field kept time themselves all night.

Falcons quarterback Terrance Topps, a senior in his first year under center, had already completed one miracle pass to keep this drive alive, a 27-yard bullet to Brian Webb on third down to get the ball to midfield. He needed another one now, because Southeast was facing a 4th-and-13 and the pocket was collapsing around him.

Topps darted to his right to elude the initial rush, but the Storm defense was on him again in a heartbeat. He turned back to his left and sprinted almost all the way to the sideline.

Nothing.

He turned back again and slipped, just barely keeping his knee above the ground as Southern defenders grabbed at his jersey. He escaped, now 15 yards behind the original line of scrimmage, and ran all the way back to the other side of the field.

Perhaps just out of exhaustion, he finally let fly a pass.

"Coach always says, 'Never give up on a play,'" said Southeast receiver Tyrell Anderson, who was darting back and forth in the end zone trying to get open.

The ball arched high in the night sky, now 30 seconds removed from when it was hiked. It hurtled back to the Earth right toward - who else - Kir Turner, the only freshman on the Falcons roster and the owner of one career catch before this play.

Tucker leaped over a Southern defender and pulled in a touchdown that will be hard to top the rest of his career.

The box score says it went 33 yards. All told, it probably went closer to a quarter mile.

"Certainly not the way we drew it up," Hessenthaler said.

The Southeast sideline erupted. So did the Storm coaching staff, but for a different reason.

"In our opinion, there was about five offensive linemen downfield," said Southern head coach Darryl Brown, who fruitlessly gave several officials a face full of protest.

"That's a tough way to walk off the field - a kid makes a heck of play but you kind of feel like things were left out there," Brown said. "But you don't get all the calls. That's not what lost us the football game."

Southeast got 127 rushing yards from Tivon Clark, including a 64-yard touchdown on the game's second play. But it still took every ounce of karma in town to put this one away.

"The exciting thing is, we can get a lot better," Hessenthaler said.

The finish couldn't.

Contact Tom Keller at 373-7034 or tom.keller@news-record.com

SE - Tivon Clark 64 run (Terrance Topps kick)

S - Scotty Wayne 2 run (kick failed)

SE - Tyrell Anderson 39 pass from Terrance Topps (Topps kick)

S - Darren Garcia 1 run (Darius Jefferson from Darren Garcia)

SE - Kir Tucker 33 pass from Topps (Topps kick)