(Stars and Stripes)

YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan – With some late heroics from Jay Douglas, Yokota escaped Friday with an overtime victory in its season-opening football game.

The senior running back rushed for 2 yards for a touchdown, then ran in the game-winning two-point conversion to rally the Panthers to a 29-28 win in a thriller at Yokota’s Bonk Field.

“It was exciting. It was a hard-fought game,” Panthers coach Michael Woodworth said. “Perry played a heckuva game. They were just wearing us down. We got to the fourth quarter, as I tell the guys in practice, you have to find that extra gas pedal somewhere and we survived it.”

Yokota never trailed until Perry’s first possession in overtime. Jordan Burford threw a touchdown pass to Xander Grantham and Preston Ramirez’s extra-point kick gave the Samurai a 28-21 lead, setting up Douglas’ heroics.

“It was a tough one,” Perry coach Daniel Burns said. “They (Yokota) just have a lot of size in the line. Their size kind of wore us down. Ironman football. We kind of ran out of gas at the end.”

Perry also hurt themselves with mistakes, Burns said. Yokota’s Brailyn Ivey blocked a punt and an extra-point kick, Lucious Como had three sacks and Kicoh Guenther and Corey Carpenter each had interceptions for the Panthers.

But the big play on defense came in the third quarter when the Samurai had the ball at Yokota’s 3-yard line. The ball came out and the Panthers’ Negron-Blanco Rodrigo returned it 97 yards for a touchdown.

“It was mistakes that hurt us,” Burns said. “Silly turnovers kept Yokota around.”

Rodrigo’s return was reminiscent of a similar play in Yokota’s 23-22 win last Oct. 15 over Osan, when Kysiem Banks ran a fumble 99 yards for a touchdown.

Yokota overcame numerous injuries to win the game; five players were hurt, including sophomore kicker Kaden Elwood, on top of Yokota losing senior Owen Moreno earlier this week due to a broken leg suffered in practice.

“We had to have that next-man-up mentality and the players stepped up,” Woodworth said.

Joshua Low added a 16-yard run for Yokota, while Kameron Ramos rushed for two touchdowns for the Samurai.

Yokota travels to Osan for a game at 6 p.m. next Friday, a makeup of a scheduled Aug. 31 game postponed due to Typhoon Shanshan. Perry next hosts Robert D. Edgren at 6 p.m. Friday.