PINE TWP — Pretty? No. Resilient? Absolutely.

That was the Seneca Valley football team's latest performance as the Raiders scored nine points in the final four and a half minutes to escape Pine-Richland Stadium with a 29-21 victory.

SV took a 23-21 lead on Michael Denny's 28-yard field goal with 4:11 left in the game.

After the Raiders' defense forced a turnover on downs, quarterback Jordan Brown hit Troy Witt with a 30-yard touchdown pass, but the extra point failed, which gave the Rams hope.

P-R began the game's last drive at its own 32 with 1:24 left on the clock and no timeouts remaining.

Austin Whipple completed five passes, the last one a 19-yard strike to tight end Collin Jackson down to SV's 20.

Whipple raced to the line to spike the ball, which he did with six seconds left. But the quarterback's final two shots at the end zone fell incomplete and the Raiders survived.

“We had a lot of self-inflicted mistakes, too many penalties (seven for 55 yards),” said Raiders' coach Don Holl. “As I told our players, I didn't like the whole movie, but I liked the way it ended.”

SV's defense responded with its late stand, but Witt's late score put pressure on the Rams' offense to mount a touchdown drive.

The play came on a fourth-and-7 from P-R's 30.

Brown initially looked to his left, then shrugged off a defender and rolled to his right before finding Witt wide open and running toward the end zone.

“Our main goal was to just pick up the first down,” said Brown. “We had Oliver (Philogene) running a 10-yard out, but he was covered.”

“We told our kids to strip the ball,” Pine-Richland coach Clair Altemus said of the fourth down play. “But we blew the coverage near the end zone.”

Seneca Valley (4-2, 1-2) scored two touchdowns in the first quarter: Brown capped an 80-yard drive with a 1-yard run for the first score, then found Witt with a 1-yard pass three drives later for a 14-0 lead.

That's when Rams halfback Brock Baranowski took matters into his own hands and broke the Raiders' momentum with a 71-yard scoring run.

The 5-foot-9, 157-pound junior took a pitch around left end and sprinted down the left sideline before cutting back toward the middle of the field and outracing SV's defensive backs for the score.

“He's the Neil Walker of the team,” Altemus said of Baranowski. “When the ball is in his hands, our guys know that if they hold their blocks, he has a chance to do something special.”

But Baranowski wasn't done.

Following SV's third touchdown — Brown's 11-yard shovel pass to Forrest Barnes, after which the extra point failed with a bad snap — Baranowski went 90 yards for his second score of the night.

“It was an odd kind of deal,” said Holl. “Early in the game, it seemed we were doing well against the run. Then, they bust those two big ones and it put us on our heels.”

The Rams (1-5, 1-3) took the lead when Whipple hit wideout Luke Merhaut on a 65-yard strike with 1:56 left before halftime.

SV's frustration continued when Denny's 25-yard field goal attempt was blocked on the last play of the first half.

“We were down at the half, but we knew why,” said Brown, who threw for 304 yards in the win and rushed for a team-leading 103 yards. “We just needed to execute.”

A huge key to SV's win was its defense's ability to stop Baranowski in the second half. He ended the night with 204 yards on 18 carries, but gained just 11 yards on six tries in the third and fourth quarters.

“We just told our guys to hit the reset button and play our kind of defense in the second half,” said Holl.

All that was left was for the Raiders to mount a go-ahead score, which they did, starting a drive at their own 43 with 6:46 left.

Despite a sack and holding penalty that cost the Raiders a combined 18 yards, Brown hit Philogene with two passes totaling 59 yards to help set up Denny's field goal to put the Raiders up for good.

SV hosts Shaler next Friday.