BUTLER TWP — It looked to be Devin Fitz's game to win.

Butler just couldn't get him there.

The Golden Tornado used a pass interference penalty to secure a first down at their own 42-yard line with 3:45 left in their mutual football season opener with Altoona Friday night. Their final possession stalled right there, however, in a 19-17 loss.

“We played well enough to win this game, but had some costly mistakes,” Tornado coach Rob Densmore said. “We've got a lot of work to do.

“Devin had a tremendous night, though. He would have been the difference if we had gotten him down there.”

Fitz booted a 37-yard field goal, knocked every kickoff through the end zone and had punts of 44 and 43 yards. Butler punted the ball only twice all night, but lost three fumbles.

“Turnovers hurt us tonight,” Densmore said. “You lose the turnover battle, you lose 90 percent of the time.”

The Tornado trailed 13-7 at the half, but used a productive third quarter to take the lead. Shad Stepp connected with Scott Dietrich for a 65-yard touchdown bomb midway through the period.

Fitz added his field goal with 2:51 left in the quarter for a 17-13 advantage.

The Mountain Lions put together an 11-play, 80-yard drive to score the go-ahead touchdown with 9:22 to play, then made a few big plays defensively to preserve the win.

“These kids had never faced adversity before,” Altoona coach John Franco said. “To come back from a deficit twice tonight ... This is huge for us.”

Doubly huge was the effort of sophomore running back Tyler Petucci. He carried 17 times for 127 yards, including six consecutive plays for 70 yards to produce a game-tying touchdown with 4:15 left in the first half.

A 31-yard run by Damien Pickett moved the Tornado into Altoona territory late in the half. Alec Bayer caught a third-down pass and was struggling to make first-down yardage when he was stripped of the football.

Nick Hayden returned the fumble 26 yards the other way. One play later, Ryan Shope connected with Daiquain Watson on a 36-yard bomb for the go-ahead score.

“That was Ryan's first touchdown pass, Daiquain's first touchdown catch,” Franco said. “There was a lot of that going on tonight.”

Watson completed the game-deciding 11-play march with a 13-yard touchdown catch.

“They made plays when they had to make them,” Densmore said. “I give them a lot of credit. I thought we could run the ball on them better than we did all night.

“Altoona made some adjustments to what we were doing.”

Damien Pickett paced Butler's rushing attack with 72 yards on 19 carries.

Stepp threw for 110 yards. A fumble recovery by Kyle Heller set up the Tornado's first touchdown.

Trevor Derian had two of the Tornado's four quarterback sacks on the night.

Butler's final possession of the game was thwarted by Brinton Singleton's tackle of Pickett for a 2-yard loss on a screen pass and Hayden's sack of Stepp on a fourth-and-12 from near midfield.

“Butler is doing a lot of things right,” Franco said. “That's a program that will be heard from in the future.”

Altoona graduated 18 starters from last season.

“This week, people lost sight of the fact we graduated most of our starters, too,” Densmore said. “We'll work on our mistakes and accentuate the positives. We did a lot of good things tonight.”