You would have had to seen it to believe it. The first round matchup between host Winter Park and visiting Lake Brantley played out like a movie, one that drags along early then climaxes to the point that the seat your sitting in just isn’t big enough to stay put in.

There was plenty of suspense to go around, all the way up until the very last play of the game. Somehow Winter Park had gone from leading big to trailing late. Very late. Yet they found a way to advance in the Class 6A state football playoffs with a narrow 50-47 win over the Patriots.

– Quite the reversal of fortunes

In the school’s first meeting since 1992, the Wildcats dominated the scoreboard all night but suddenly found themselves down by three points with 1:15 to go in the game after a furious 28-point outburst by Lake Brantley in the fourth quarter.

But in the end, the 21 points Winter Park posted that same period would be enough to hang on.

Winter Park quarterback Sam Richardson (Photo by Chris Schubert)

The winning team relied on a big return by Zee Ware on their final kickoff, and a penalty on the Patriots that followed, to get set up at 31 yards from the end zone. Senior Jared Thompson then hauled in a big catch. And quarterback Sam Richardson scrambles to get the Wildcats closer. Finally, one handoff and a quick juke move by Patrick Mputu allowed for the six-yard gain to help Winter Park retaken the lead with 39 seconds left in the game.

It was evident that desperation time wasn’t over yet for a Lake Brantley team that thought it had already capped off an unthinkable comeback. But now they had to do it again, this time from 80 yards. And that final drive had all the makings of yet another miracle. There was a big catch near midfield that kept fans believing, but then uncertainty from that point on. A sack by Winter Park junior James Washington made it all the more difficult. One play left. But the 44-yard bomb into the end zone hit the ground and sent the Wildcats in celebration.

Mputu’s winning touchdown was his third in the final quarter as he averaged 7.7 yards per carry on the night and finished with 199 yards on 26 carries.

– How did it get to this?

With 5:56 to go in the final quarter it seemed everybody but the Patriots thought the game was out of reach as Winter Park held a commanding 43-26 lead off three Lake Brantley turnovers they converted into touchdowns.

In the final push of the postseason, Lake Brantley got big runs from Ti’an Green and Tyler Krider, big catches from Eric Gibbs and Xavier Youngblood, and steady leadership from quarterback Bryce Bergeron. Not to mention a better effort from a defense that finally buckled down to keep the Patriots alive.

Gibbs caught a 20-yard touchdown pass with 3:48 left to cut into the Winter Park deficit, 43-33. A bad snap on the punt for the Wildcats followed to then set up the Patriots with another scoring chance at the 2:32 mark. They made that pay off as Krider scored from 2-yards out with 1:32 still to go to climb within three points.

But Lake Brantley needed an onside kick. And they got it. The very next play Bergeron threw a 44-yard beauty to Youngblood that got the Patriots down to the 2-yard line, where Bergeron eventually got in for the score to finally put the visiting team up for the first time, 47-43.

Not that it mattered though as the first three quarters came back to haunt them when it was all said and done.

– How it all got started

Winter Park opened the game by scoring two touchdowns off two Lake Brantley turnovers before the Patriots were even able to answer the bell with a score of their own.

Junior Lee Dunnam made a phenomenal catch in the end zone from Richardson on a slant route in the first quarter and Ware hauled in a 15-yard strike from Richardson as he rolled out to his right with 5:31 to go in the second quarter.

Krider then scored the first of his four touchdowns for Lake Brantley in the game with 2:35 to go in the first half on a 1-yard run up the middle. Richardson replied though by leading a Wildcat charge that extended the Winter Park lead to 21-7 at intermission once he sped his way into the left corner of the end zone on a 15-yard run on the final play of the half.

Setting up that final score were big catches by Thompson, Terrell Foy and Clark Galloway, and a big run by Mputu, who ran 10 times for 65 yards in the first half.

The teams then traded the next six touchdowns back and forth before the Patriots were finally able to secure the momentum, albeit as short lived as it was, in the fourth quarter.

A huge kick return by Lake Brantley to open the second half set up a 9-yard touchdown run by Krider with 11:35 remaining in the third, but the point-after attempt failed. After trading punts, Richardson threw a 32-yard scoring strike to Thompson with 4:27 to go in the period with senior Jeff Hoblick running in the 2-point conversion on what appeared to be a fake-field goal attempt. On the very next possession Krider again reached pay dirt from three yards out but the two-point conversion was snuffed out by sophomore Dvario Montgomery with 1:27 to spare in the third.

Winter Park held onto a 29-19 lead heading into the fourth quarter.

Mputu then hit a hole and reached the end zone on a 5-yard run at 10:09 to go. Bergeron replied for Lake Brantley with a 4-yard touchdown run as 7:43 remained. It was Mputu who again scored, this time from the 2-yard line following an interception by Ware, to help secure the Winter Park lead with 5:56 left before the Patriots fought back and took the lead for the first time on the night.

Contributing big plays for the Wildcats were senior Corey Gonsalves with a tackle for loss, junior Austin Shelton with a forced fumble on a big hit at the line of scrimmage in the second quarter, and senior Dwayne Pearce with a pass break up in the third quarter.

– Where to from here?

Winter Park (10-1) moves on to host Seminole (9-2), the Class 6A defending state champions this Friday after the Seminoles came from behind to top Timber Creek 30-27 in double overtime.

The winner of that game will join whoever is left standing between Dr. Phillips (11-0) and Apopka (10-1) as the only big schools from the area still in the hunt for a title. Apopka routed Boone 49-0 last week while Dr. Phillips pulled out a win over Olympia, and the area’s leading passer in Trevor Siemian, 23-22 without the services of their leading rusher Demetrius Hart.

–– More Winter Park vs. Lake Brantley ––

– More video footage at WFTV