Three and a half hours of sweat and nerves, months of hard work, years of dreaming and a decade or two of waiting all got compressed down into about four seconds for Warren Central and Clinton.

Warren Central quarterback Jesse Wilson took the snap and a quick three-step drop. Tight end Colin Standish broke from the slot toward the goal post as the ball floated toward him.

A heartbeat later, it was all over. The game, the season, for some players football as they know it. All of it.

The scoreboard lights that washed over one side with a message of jubilation agonized and mocked the other with a simple message of despair: Clinton 27. Warren Central 21.

Wilson’s pass to Standish skidded off the tight end’s hands and through the end zone, ending the latest thrilling chapter in a long-running rivalry. Clinton (12-1) won the second-round Class 6A playoff game and advanced to face Madison Central in next week’s North State championship. Warren Central (10-3) hasn’t been that far in 22 years now, and counting.

“My heart breaks for these guys. They had a lot invested in it,” Warren Central coach Josh Morgan said. “There’s a lot of hurt boys. That’s how much it meant to them. They were all in, and it meant a whole lot to them. You could tell how they played the whole entire year. It was tough to see it end that way, in that kind of fashion. Our boys are hurting, and that hurts me.”

The game featured enough twists, turns, heroic performances and heavy rain to be mistaken for a Hollywood feature about football. It was delayed for an hour at halftime by a line of thunderstorms with the score tied at 14, and the rain later played a pivotal role in the storyline.

Midway through the third quarter, Clinton punter Walker Burchfield slipped while kicking on the muddy turf. The ball nubbed off the end of his foot and rolled about 10 yards. Warren Central got the ball at the Clinton 28 and scored two plays later on a 15-yard run by Wilson to go up 21-14.

Clinton’s bad breaks continued into the fourth quarter. The Arrows’ all-state quarterback, Cam Akers, threw an interception on their next drive. Halfway through the fourth quarter he was stopped a yard short of a first down at the Warren Central 10-yard line on a fourth-and-10 scramble. Akers’ run was preceded by a holding penalty that took a touchdown off the board.

Clinton’s Superman rose to the occasion down the stretch, however. He carried the ball six times on a nine-play, 81-yard drive. His last carry was a 6-yarder up the middle for a touchdown, and Tucker Barefoot’s extra point tied it at 21 with 3:48 left in the fourth quarter.

Neither team was able to move the ball past midfield before it went to overtime. On the first play of the extra period, Akers ran off the right side and into the end zone for a 10-yard touchdown and a 27-21 Clinton lead.

Akers finished the game with 38 carries for 258 yards and three touchdowns. He was a modest 11-of-17 passing for 134 yards, with no touchdowns and a season-high two interceptions.

“We knew where the ball was going. They went into where they were just going to lean on him,” Morgan said. “It was three- and four-yard type stuff. They leaned on him heavily and he grinded some things out, but overall I felt we did a pretty good job on him defensively.”

The lead in overtime was only the second Clinton had had on the Vikings in two full games this season. The first had come in the second quarter Friday and lasted just 28 seconds. After Darius Maberry scored on a 5-yard run to put Clinton up 14-7, WC’s Demarcus Jones ran 67 yards to the Clinton 1 and Joe Shorter punched it in on the next play to tie it.

This time, Clinton coach Judd Boswell tried to make sure it stood up. Instead of kicking the PAT, he put the ball back in Akers’ hands for a two-point conversion try. The Vikings stuffed Akers well short of the goal line, leaving the margin at a tantalizing six points.

“We got out there about halfway through it and I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know,’” Boswell said of the decision to go for two. “When No. 3 says, ‘I got this,’ you listen to him. We put a lot of faith in our kids on that, and it worked out for the best for us tonight.”

Warren Central then got the ball at Clinton’s 10 for its possession. Wilson ran for three yards, missed Jones on a wheel route toward the goal line, and then ran for another three yards to set up a fourth-and-goal from the 4-yard line.

The Vikings’ season came down to this one final play. Wilson took the direct snap as Standish broke on his post route, covered but a step in front of the Clinton safety and open enough for Wilson to get the ball to him.

It was the scenario Warren Central wanted. Clinton was fooled.

“We figured they’d try to give it to the best player, and that’d be Wilson. He pulled it down and had the tight end wide open,” Boswell said.

The pass, somehow, fell incomplete.

“Our guy was there, we just couldn’t make the play,” said Wilson, who ran for 123 yards and two TDs but completed just 4 of 16 passes for 48 yards. “It was a little off. He could’ve made the catch, but I could’ve done a better job of putting the ball in the right spot. It was just big-time plays we weren’t able to make.”

And that was that.

Clinton’s players celebrated immediately by raising their hands in the air, shouting, and sprinting toward the sideline. In the end zone, Standish fell onto his back and stared at the sky. Jones and offensive lineman Tra Winters dropped to one knee on opposite ends of the goal line, trying to process the moment. Some Vikings cried, while others took comfort in the embraces of family members.

Life will go on. A new season will begin next August. This one, though, was over — brutally over — and the promise of next year was little comfort on a muddy November night.

“The way it came to an end really intensifies it,” Morgan said. “You don’t have any time to be thinking on it. Within a split-second you’re fixing to be a joyous celebration or it’s a gut-wrenching defeat. It doesn’t leave you much time to get ready for that. It’s really hard to respond to.”