Munising quarterback Josh Huotari, right, looks to evade the tackle of Bark River-Harris’ Tyler Racicot during a high school football game played Saturday at Harris. (Escanaba Daily Press photo by Austin Hemmingson)

HARRIS — In an old-school, grind-it-out type football game, Bark River-Harris made the key plays to finish it in the fourth quarter for a 14-7 win over Munising on Saturday in a West PAC Iron Division contest.

Leading 8-7, the Broncos’ Joseph Stein scored his second touchdown on a 27-yard cutback run on the second play of the fourth quarter to give the BR-H a 14-7 advantage.

Then with 1:55 remaining and the Mustangs facing 4th-and-1 at the Bark River 39, the Broncos’ defense beat Munising quarterback Josh Huotari to the edge to stop him six inches shy of the first down, which sealed the game.

“I don’t know why it is, but a lot of times we control the line of scrimmage and then we find ourselves in a barnburner at the end. These boys like a little drama or something,” BR-H coach Al Stenberg said. “This was one of those games where we felt like we were just inches away from putting it away, and we couldn’t. We couldn’t put up two or three touchdowns when we needed to.”

The Broncos, who outgained the Mustangs 303-187, had a chance to seal it at the 5:13 mark of the fourth quarter when quarterback Nick Javurek scored on a 31-yard TD run on 4th-and-1. But the play was negated by a holding call and Javurek’s pass on 4th-and-11 fell incomplete to give the Mustangs (0-3) one last chance.

“We had a couple penalties at the end of the game, and Munising just kept on playing,” Stenberg said. “They always play us tough. Last year they completely humiliated us (58-8), so we have a pretty good history going between the two teams.

“We’ve had a lot of playoff challenges between the two of us and we’ve had a lot of competitive games. We wanted to get back on the winning side of this one for sure.”

The Mustangs struck first on a 55-yard run to the left by Huotari with 3:43 left in the first quarter. After a successful point after, they led 7-0.

“Josh Huotari is our quarterback and our playmaker,” Mustangs coach Matt Mattson said. “On that touchdown run he made a nice play.

“We had a couple passes that we dropped that we normally catch, and we don’t have a ton of team speed, so we’re not built to make a lot of long plays. We have to grind it out and we just ran out of gas a couple times.”

After spending a good chunk of the first half in Munising territory, the Broncos finally got on the board on a 10-yard pass from Javurek to Stein on a 4th-and-4 play 3:18 before halftime. Hudson Huff punched in the two-point conversion for an 8-7 advantage.

The Broncos (2-1) were driving again with 30 ticks left, but tailback Aidan Johnson fumbled on the Munising 33 on the tail end of a 20-yard scamper to leave the score at 8-7 entering halftime.

“Defensively, we played well enough the past couple weeks to win some football games,” Mattson said. “Offensively, we’ve got to figure some things out. Our defense definitely held us in the game and gave us a chance; we just couldn’t convert on the offensive end.”

Trevor Lippens led a balanced BR-H attack with 20 carries for 102 yards and one pass reception for 24 yards. Johnson ran nine times for 70 yards. Javurek finished 4 of 12 through the air for 54 yards and a TD, while Stein carried seven times for 58 yards and a score and caught a 10-yard pass for both of the Broncos’ touchdowns.

“Joey hasn’t played football since youth, and he is a playmaker,” Stenberg said. “He’s our spark plug. He’s the type of kid that never stops — every day in practice he goes hard, he pays attention and he’s going to get better and better and better. When the chips are down, we try to get the ball in his hands because he can make something happen.”

Huotari, who accounted for 177 of the Mustangs’ 187 yards, went 9 of 12 for 63 yards passing while carrying 23 times for 114 yards and a rushing TD. Teammate Chad Trapczyk made four catches for 27 yards, Ethan Lakosky had two catches for 22 and Austin Killips added two catches for 9 yards.

On Friday, Munising hosts L’Anse in a cross-division, nonconference West PAC matchup.