The Olympic Heights Lions football team fell short of its quest of advancing to the post season for the first time since 2009 with a 33-14 loss to Palm Beach Lakes on Friday, Oct. 28.

Had the Lions been able to win at Palm Beach Lakes, they would have finished their 2016 District 7A-13 schedule at 3-2 and in a three-way tie for second place with Palm Beach Lakes and Royal Palm Beach forcing a three-team playoff on Monday, Oct. 31 to see which team would advance to post season play.

However, as was the case against Royal Palm Beach a week earlier, the Lions put themselves into a hole in the first half of the game, fought hard to make a close game of it, but allowed their opponent two late scores to quash any hopes of a comeback win.

The Lions overall record is now 5-3 with the non-district, season-closing homecoming game against Village Academy to be played Thursday, Nov. 3. Regardless of the outcome of the Village Academy game, it has been an impressive turnaround for a team that had only won one game over the previous two seasons.

As head coach Chris Kokell told his dejected team after the loss to Palm Beach Lakes, “You guys have gone from a team that lost by a total score of 545-24 two years ago to a team that was three minutes away from possibly going to the playoffs. That’s not because of us [the coaching staff]; that’s because of your hard work, your effort.”

The three minutes Kokell was referring to was when the Lions, trailing 21-14 with just those three minutes remaining in the game and in position to tie the game, an Anthony Petillo pass was intercepted, and the Rams then went on a time-consuming scoring drive to go up 27-14 after the extra point was missed with only 1:46 left in the game.

The next Lions’ possession saw another Petillo pass picked off, this one being returned for a touchdown, sealing the win for the Rams and putting an end to the Lions’ playoff hopes.

The Lions struggled on offense throughout the first half as Kokell rotated quarterbacks using Petillo, Joey Poloskey, and Jack Coulson in an attempt to find an offensive spark. However, every time it looked as if the Lions might be putting a drive together, a lack of execution, turnovers, or penalties put an end to the drives.

The Lions defense, despite giving up some big plays due to missed tackles, did their best to keep the score close through the first half, including stopping the Rams after Omar Iqab fumbled a punt attempt snap inside the Lions five-yard line.

On the Lions next possession starting from their own one-yard line, running back Reis Clark, who had 142 rushing yards on the night, took the ball on a 63-yard run to the Rams’ 34-yard line. But the drive stalled right there as the Lions could only manage three more yards on the possession.

In fact, it was the Lions defense that got the scoring started when Mike Nestor picked off a Palm Beach Lakes pass for a 55-yard touchdown with 4:38 left in the third quarter.

It was until midway through the fourth quarter that the Lions offense finally scored on a 77-yard drive when Michael Ippolito, with a defensive back draped all over him, made an impressive catch of a 30-yard Petillo pass in the end zone to pull the Lions within seven points with 7:11 remaining in the game. That touchdown pass was set up three plays earlier when Petillo threw a perfectly timed pass to Ippolito on a crossing route that went for a 42-yard gain

Then came the three minutes that saw the Lions last chance to tie the game and possibly send it into an overtime period in hopes of forcing a playoff for the playoff spot fade into the night.

Few expected the Lions to win even three games this season, much less be a playoff contender. Few, except for Kokell, his coaching staff, and his band of gutty players that never – even in the face of adversity – quit playing hard.

Despite the disappointment of not earning the playoff berth, this Lions team has much to be proud of as it appears, after several years of losing – and losing big – the program is now headed in the right direction.