​Sep. 19—FITHIAN — Standing outside the Oakwood locker room, Oakwood quarterback Alex Wallace didn’t expect to feel this way late Friday night.Neither did any of his Oakwood football teammates.But handling the sting of a painful defeat was the reality for Oakwood. No homecoming victory to savor. Or senior night celebration to cap with a Vermilion Valley Conference win.Instead, it was Clifton Central feeling elated after rallying for a hard-fought 36-33 victory at Marty McFarland Field between two of the top VVC teams this season.”It’s a really tough pill to swallow,” Wallace said. “We were really riding high there for a while, and it came back to bite us in the butt. Everybody is a little low right now.”Oakwood (3-2, 3-1 VVC) let a three-touchdown lead slip away, with Clifton Central relying on quarterback Cash Mindar to deliver big throw after big throw during pressure-packed moments late in the game.Oakwood enjoyed a 33-14 lead with two minutes left in the third quarter after Jaethan Perez took a screen pass from Wallace and scampered his way up the field for a 59-yard run-and-catch touchdown. It was the second dynamic play of the quarter between Wallace and Perez, with the two connecting for a 74-yard touchdown pass just 50 seconds prior that gave Oakwood a 26-6 lead.But Central (4-1, 4-1) wasn’t deterred. Not with Mindar under center. The sophomore quarterback completed 16 of 27 passes for 279 yards and three touchdowns. He finished with four touchdowns on the night after rushing for a 2-yard score that trimmed Central’s deficit to 12-6 with 39.1 seconds left before halftime.”I didn’t want to lose,” Mindar said. “I’m not a fan of losing. I hate it. It’s not something I deal with well.”So Mindar went to work. He threw a 39-yard touchdown pass to Kaden Neveu with 35.5 seconds remaining in the third quarter — the fifth touchdown combined by the two teams who share the Comets nickname during the final three minutes of the quarter — to cut Oakwood’s lead to 33-20.Then, Central recovered its second onside kick of the night and wasted little time finding the end zone again when Minard picked apart the Oakwood secondary with a well-placed ball to Mayson Mayhall for a 35-yard score. Central converted the two-point conversion and only trailed 33-28 with 11:52 remaining in the fourth quarter.”We haven’t played a complete football game yet,” Oakwood coach Cameron Lee said. “It seems like right now, even when we were winning early on, there’s an area we can be better at. That’s not one side of the ball. That’s not one player. That’s just collectively across the board.”The offensive outburst by Central continued after forcing Oakwood to punt on its next possession. This time, though, it wasn’t Mindar throwing the ball. Derek Meier took a handoff from Mindar and followed his blockers down the right sideline for a 35-yard touchdown run off a sweep. A successful two-point conversion run by Mindar put Central ahead 36-33 with 8:02 left in the game to ca