KITTANNING - Sam Panchik shook his head, smiled and grabbed his chest.

"Heart attack, man," said the Kittanning High School football coach after his team pulled out a 14-7 overtime win over Freeport Monday night. "My heart is thumping."

If the game was lacking some of the pageantry of a typical Friday night contest, it more than made up for it with a dramatic second half.

After playing a scoreless first two quarters, the teams launched 13-play drives that chewed up more than five minutes each.

Kittanning was first, driving 64 yards and taking 6:46 off the clock to start the third quarter as Brad Bothel plunged in from the 1 to give the Wildcats a 7-0 lead.

Bothel had nine carries for 53 yards on the drive, which was kept alive by an encroachment penalty on the Yellowjackets on a fourth-and-4 play.

Freeport, though, answered with a 68-yard drive when Kiel Conjack hit Jake Lassinger for a 7-yard touchdown strike on a fourth-and-goal play.

"(Freeport coach Bill Dillen) had his team prepared for us," Panchik said. "I knew it was going to be a defensive struggle."

Kittanning got the ball first in overtime and scored on the second play when Joe Acerni slashed through the Freeport defense for 10 yards and the score.

Conjack's fourth-and-goal pass from the 3 fell incomplete and the Yellowjackets suffered their second consecutive narrow defeat.

Last week, Freeport lost to Ford City 13-6.

"I think last week our kids knew they let it slip away," Dillen said. "I've been through this for 30 years. You win some of these and you lose some of these."

Both defenses were up to the task.

Freeport (2-2 overall, 0-2 in the section) came into the game having not allowed a defensive touchdown. Kittanning's two didn't come easy."

"They are just a good group of kids," Dillen said of his defensive unit. "They study what they have to do. They are prepared and they execute."

Kittanning (4-0, 2-0) managed just 184 total yards - all coming in the running game. Quarterback Jeremy Deluca was 0-for-3 passing with one interception and hasn't completed a pass in eight attempts this season.

It mattered little, as Bothel was the workhorse, carrying the ball 28 times for 121 yards.

Freeport managed just 148 total yards and just 69 in the running game.

"It's going to be a defensive struggle every time we play," Panchik said. "Freeport is going to beat a lot of teams this season."

Conjack threw the ball well for the most part, hooking up with Kory Micholas five times for 54 yards. Conjack was 8-of-16 for 79 yards in the contest overall.

Freeport was hamstrung by field position in the first half, when its average starting field position was at its own 16-yard line.

"We didn't try to do anything stupid," Dillen said. "We just wanted to control the ball and play to a tie in the first half, and we did that."

Turnovers hurt Kittanning in the first half. The Wildcats threw an interception and lost two fumbles in Freeport territory in the first two quarters.

But Freeport couldn't take advantage of them as the Yellowjackets now face an uphill climb out of a 0-2 section hole.

"The kids know what they have to do," Dillen said. "There's five ballgames left. We're still in this thing. Last year, we got six straight wins and made the playoffs."