The City League championship game is supposed to feature Brashear and/or Perry, as it did in each of the previous nine occasions. It didn't.

It's also supposed to be a low-scoring affair -- not only because the losing team had cracked double digits only three times since 2000 but because Oliver and Schenley were the league's two stingiest defenses.

It wasn't.

Schenley running back Jerome Matthews was supposed to be the Spartans' workhorse, their best chance at winning. He wasn't.

This City League championship at Cupples Stadium was anything that was unexpected and anything but conventional. So it was fitting it became the title game to go to overtime.

Schenley won only its second City League championship since 1950, beating Oliver in double overtime, 34-32.

"I never in a million years would have imagined the score being so much for either side," Schenley lineman Hykeem Moore said. "But we were going to fight until we won, and we did and it feels so amazing."

Darren Jackson rushed for two touchdowns and passed for one for the Spartans (9-1), who will play a PIAA playoff game against District 9 champion Punxsutawney Friday at Cupples Stadium.

When the teams met in the regular season, it was a 6-0 Schenley win, but this contest developed into a shootout, with each team scoring three touchdowns in regulation and another two each in the overtimes.

The game came down to a two-point conversion run for Oliver (8-2) in the second overtime. After Jackson had scored a touchdown during the Spartans' possession and Deandre Black -- who had a spirited fourth-down 4-yard run for a touchdown to extend the game at the end of the first overtime -- added a 2-point conversion run, the Bears' Martise Smith scored his second touchdown of the game, a 13-yard pass from Donte' Jeter.

Oliver's Tyree Mathis took the conversion run up the middle and kept his legs churning after originally appearing to be stopped. He appeared to cross the goal line but officials ruled the ball had come loose prior to that.

Both teams had opportunities to recover the loose ball in the end zone but it ultimately squirted out the back of the end zone, setting off a wild Spartans celebration.

"This feels so good to win a championship for our school," Jackson said. "All our fans were here and they were great, so we can share it with them."

"They wore us down," Bears coach Tim Keefer said. "Our concern the whole time was we couldn't hang with them. We did it all season with trick plays or plays on defense. I guess our glass slipper kind of fell off."

Schenley had been led all season by Matthews, who led the City League with 14 touchdowns coming in and led the Spartans in rushing and was tied for the team lead in receptions.

But other than a first-quarter 11-yard touchdown reception from Jackson, Matthews had only eight carries for eight yards. He suffered from cramps and lied on the field for several minutes of the second quarter while being attended to. He was a non-factor in the second half.

That was OK for Schenley, though, as it got touchdowns from four different players, including Jeron Grayson on a 29-yard run just after Matthews left the game.

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