The Red Level High School Tigers’ football team was able to pick up a narrow 41-40 win over Kinston High School on Friday night despite giving away two touchdowns in the first quarter and being down in the third quarter.

Red Level was down 12-0 before finally scoring with 2:14 left in the first quarter when quarterback Parker Spears connected with Joel Phillips to get their first touchdown of the night to make it 12-7.

The Tigers struck again to take the lead in the second quarter after a failed fake punt attempt by Kinston.

Red Level got the ball on the 20-yard line after the failed punt attempt and Spears ran it to the 3-yard line before he ran again into the end zone to make it 14-12 with 7:57 left in the half.

Two minutes later, Kinston took the lead again when they made a pass to the end zone with 5:11 left in the half, but did not convert the two-point conversion to make it 18-14.

The Tigers did not let up before half time as Spears ran for another touchdown to make it 21-18 to end the half.

At the beginning of the second half, Kinston took the lead on a pass that made its way to the end zone and converting on a two-point conversion to make the score 26-21 with 11:04 to go in the third quarter.

Kinston struck blood again on a pass with 6:40 left in the third quarter, but could not score the two-point conversion, making the score 32-21.

The Tigers would not give up hope as Spears rushed for another touchdown with 2:14 left in the third quarter, making the score 32-28.

In the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Tigers would score right off the bat when Spears rushed for a 72-yard touchdown, to make it 34-32, but the Bulldogs answered with another touchdown pass and a two-point conversion to make the score 40-34.

The game-winning touchdown came in the eighth minute, when Bradyn Hall made a kick return rush all the way to the Kinston 28-yard line. Spears then rushed to the 15-yard line for a first down.

Demarcus Johnson rushed to the 1-yard line. Spears put the cherry on top with a 1-yard rushing touchdown to make it 41-40.

“These guys have been playing their hearts out for the last three weeks,” Head coach Kenny Skipper said. “They just keep on fighting. They play harder than most of the teams I have coached.”

Skipper said that early mistakes made the game harder than it had to be.

“We gave up two very early touchdowns and went down 12-0 in the first quarter. That’s one thing you can’t do,” Skipper said. “We have gotten better on offense and made up for it.”

Preparing for next week, Skipper said that he will focus on the team as a whole.

“We need to work on us,” Skipper said. “We can’t worry too much about who we are playing. We just need to focus on what we need to fix.”

The Tigers will host Calhoun next Friday at 7 p.m.