When in the heat of battle, the St. Regis Tigers will bite back, no matter what the score is.

Fighting back after a late lead change, coach Jesse Allan’s Tigers defeated the No. 6 Seeley-Swan Blackhawks 34-28 in an exciting, down-to-the-last-play contest in Seeley Lake Friday night, throwing St. Regis right into the middle of a white-hot Western C football race.

Now 3-0 overall and in conference play, the Tigers visit 1-2 Charlo Friday but it’s hard not to look ahead to 3-0 Darby visiting St. Regis in two weeks. That game between two teams of Tigers could go a long ways in deciding the Western 8-Man conference’s final playoff fate.

Falling to 2-1 with the tough loss, Seeley-Swan’s road to the playoffs just became a little more difficult thanks to the gritty Tigers.

All-State quarterback Conner Lulis weaved his way first up the middle, to the right and then back left on a long tackle-evading run covering some 65 yards for a touchdown with less than a minute left in the game to give the Tigers the lead, and the St. Regis defense held firm during a furious last-second scramble that left the Blackhawks inside the Tigers’ five-yard line but unable to get a final play off as time expired.

The sequence that led up to the wild finish included a hotly disputed pass interference call on St. Regis which gave the Blackhawks second life and almost allowed them to snatch the game away.

Allan said he knew what spurred his boys on to the win in the end. “The St. Regis Tigers don’t back down, I’m pretty proud of these guys,” he said. “When the game was on the line, our kids stepped up to it and got it done.”

Lulis, Nathan Bohn and Tucker Desoto all touched down in the end zone for St. Regis against Seeley. Lulis ran for three touchdowns and passed for two others to Bohn and Desoto rushed for St. Regis’ other score.

Allan said Lulis and freshman Hunter Slattery grabbed key interceptions helping to seal the big win for the Tigers.

The Tigers started the game out with a touchdown drive and followed that up by recovering a fumble deep in Seeley-Swan territory on the next series, converting that turnover into another touchdown to jump out to an early 14-0 lead.

Allan said the big, physical Blackhawks spent the rest of the night battling back, even knocking a few key Tigers (Dylan Arbogast and Chet Hill) out of the game along the way.

“Seeley plays downhill, are big guys that play physical football, put a few of our guys on the sideline early. We had to adjust, put some kids in unfamiliar roles,” Allan said, “and they responded. We did some growing in this game.”

Allan also pointed to his team leaders, to the perhaps underrated talents of Mohn and the continuing growth of the seemingly unflappable Lulis as being key to the Tigers’ success in Seeley Lake.

“Nathan is proving he is an all-state player, he made huge plays on both sides of the ball all game, including some really big ones at the end,” Allan said. “And Connor, what can I say? He led us, made the plays when we needed them, also both on offense and defense.”