WEARE – Fifteen and half minutes into Saturday’s game and things already weren’t looking good for the Bow High School football team. The Falcons’ defense had given up two touchdowns and the offense had been ineffective so far as it reached the red zone only once and gave the ball back to John Stark on an interception.

The Generals seemed to be getting their revenge on Bow, the team that snarled their perfect regular season on Oct. 22 in the rain. But this time, the stakes were greater than any game can be in October.

After Stark’s second touchdown the Falcons snapped their focus back, readjusted their offense and reached the end zone three times, while limiting the General’s to one touchdown. Ultimately, it was Matthew Harkins’s five-yard pass to Mac Kimball in the end zone with less than five minutes left in the fourth that pushed No. 7 Bow (8-2) to a 27-21 win over No. 2 John Stark (8-2) in the Division II quarterfinals Saturday.

“They shocked us and stymied a lot of efforts in the first part,” Bow Coach Paul Cohen said. “We knew it would be a very close battle and we knew we had to be on our game – unfortunately we weren’t early on. But clearly as a testament to what these student-athletes did turning it around the way they did and holding off every effort late in the game that our opposition did, I can’t say enough how proud I am.”

Harkins was picked off twice in the game, but made up for it with two touchdown passes. His first looked like an incomplete pass when Stark’s Jacob Ridenour got a hand on it, but the ball deflected up and was grabbed out of the air by tight end Nate Alford in the end zone to cut into the Generals’ lead, 14-7, in the second quarter.

“The defensive touchdown was huge,” Cohen said. “Block a punt and score a touchdown off that, it doesn’t happen very often, especially in (the) playoffs.”After a John Stark three-and-out, the Falcons added more points as Matthew Scanlon blocked a punt on the 26 yard line and Jack Corriveau scooped it up and carried it in for a score. Kimball kicked the extra point through the uprights to tie it at 14 with 5:30 to go before halftime.

That was the turning point of the game in Harkins’s mind.

“After that, it pumped us all up and we knew we were going to win that game,” he said.

Despite losing momentum, the Generals were set on getting it back before halftime. Stark stitched together a 75-yard, three-minute drive, which was capped by an 11-yard touchdown pass from sophomore quarterback Parker McQuarrie to Cooper Gorski.

Bow had no answer in the final two minutes of the half – although both teams picked each other off in back-to-back plays – and Stark held a 21-14 lead at the break.

“I felt like we were on our heels but I knew we weren’t going to give up,” Harkins said. “We always fight hard and we knew that we could win coming into this and we never didn’t think that.”

The second half was a different story for Bow.

On their second possession, the Falcons drove 70 yards and running back Justin Mooney punched in a score on second and goal from the 4. The drive ate up seven minutes and the teams were tied once again, 21-21, going into the fourth quarter.

Stark went three and out on its first two possessions of the quarter with Bow’s defensive line doing its best impression of a stone wall. The Falcons snuffed out the run game on three straight attempts in the first drive, and Alex Berube sacked McQuarrie on the second drive for a loss of six.

Bow got the ball back on their own 30 and Harkins connected down the middle of the field with Alford for a 40-yard gain. Three plays later, Harkins found Kimball for the go-ahead score. But an encroachment call on the ensuing extra point attempt forced Bow to re-kick and Kimball missed wide left, leaving the score at 27-21. If they could score a touchdown, the Generals would only need to kick the extra point to take a one-point lead.

But with 4:38 left in the game, the Generals started at their own 25 and only moved the ball 8 yards before McQuarrie threw his fourth interception on fourth and 15, this time to Scanlon, his second pick of the day, down the left sideline. Bow took over on their 37 and did its best to run the clock down.

“We just didn’t come to play as well as I had hoped,” John Stark senior Leif Mailloux said. “We were hoping to put up 42 today, we really were. We were excited and ready to go, but they’re just a great team and they beat us again, fair and square.”

Stark’s final drive started well with a screen pass to a handoff that gained 15 yards down the right sideline to their own 38. But a sack by Berube on the next play pushed them back five yards, leading to two incomplete passes before Scanlon’s pick.

“We thought we had the right plays called, but it didn’t go our way,” Stark Coach Rod McQuarrie said. “They were playing great defense and were on us.”

It was Parker McQuarrie’s second start of his high school career. His older brother, senior Drew McQuarrie, was the starting quarterback until the Generals’ last meeting with Bow when Parker was subbed in while Drew was moved to receiver as he dealt with pain in his throwing shoulder.

Bow will face Hanover on the road in the semifinals Saturday at 1 p.m. Not a bad first impression for the D-II newcomers.

“Nobody predicted we would do what we have done so far in Division II, coming out of Division III last year, a lot of question marks and so on,” Cohen said. “But clearly we have shown that we can play at this level and succeed at this level, and I think that’s really the best statement these athletes can make on the field.”