WHITTEMORE-PRESCOTT - Nov. 6, 2009 - Chris Downes was ready, willing and able to carry Whittemore-Prescott when the Cardinals needed him most.

But when the Cardinals needed him most Downes was on the sideline, awaiting a doctor's note that the officiating crew required before allowing him to re-enter the game after he'd been shaken up by a bone-jarring hit with 2:40 left in the game.

With a first down at the Merrill 30 yard line, trailing the Vandals 33-26 in Friday's district championship game, the Cards were forced to go without Downes at the critical moment in what was to be their season-saving drive. Four plays later -- a sack and three incompletions -- the drive was over as well as W-P's last best chance to win the game.

W-P coach Kevin Frederick was beside himself with frustration.

"I don't know how the officials can make that judgment," Frederick said. "How they can keep him off the field when we have two doctors on the sideline that said he was OK, I don't know.

"He's done so much for us all season, and for him not to be allowed to play ... I'm sorry, we were scoring if he was in there. He was talking coherently. He was fine. And we had two doctors that said he was fine."

Once the note was written and produced, Downes was back in the game, but the damage had been done.

The controversial finish overshadowed a gutsy performance by the Cardinals, who were in deep trouble after giving up four straight touchdowns to the Vandals and their high-octane offense. Quarterback Nate Tack and his passel of receivers ran the Vandals' spread offense to near-perfection in the middle quarters, rolling up nearly 350 yards of offense while bouncing back from an early 12-0 W-P lead.

Tack, who finished with 271 yards in the air on 18-of-33 passing, threw touchdown passes of seven and eight yards to Jimmy Schoof, nine and 18 yards to Kyle Mayan and 39 yards to Tyler Gross.

"We've seen the spread, but not run with that kind of precision," Frederick said. "They have a good quarterback ... When they find a weakness they continue to exploit it until you adjust to it.

"I thought we did a pretty decent job with it at times. We had an interception and some big stops in the fourth quarter."

W-P didn't get a stop it wanted to start the second half. Merrill, leading 21-12 at the break, took just six plays to score and built its 15-point advantage. The Cards were forced to punt on their next drive, but finally held the Vandals after a 60-yard drive dame to an end at the W-P 22.

"After we gave up that score to start the second half, a lot of teams would have gotten down," Frederick said. "But the kids believed they would win the game right to the end."

Downes, who finished with 273 yards on 30 carries, broke loose for a 78-yard run to make it 27-18. Merrill bounced back with another 61-yard, eight-play scoring drive, but the W-P offense had revived. Downes ran for all but 11 of the Cards' 64 yards on their next possession, capping it with a 7-yard touchdown run with eight minutes to play, then passing on a halfback option play to Kevin Dupuis for the 2-point conversion.

W-P forced Merrill into a three-and-out and got the ball back at its own 31 with six minutes to play.

Downes carried the ball on six of the next eight plays. On 4th-and-7, he raced past the first down marker, tried to leapt over one tackler but took a helmet to the groin and landed hard on the sideline.

After receiving medical attention for several minutes, he was declared fit to return, but the officials remained unconvinced.

W-P parlayed a pair of Merrill turnovers into an early 12-0 lead. Merrill fumbled the ball away at its own 37 on its second play from scrimmage, and Dylan DeBoever finished off a quick four-play drive with a 9-yard scoring pass to Dupuis.

Adam Rumbold ended Merrill's next possession with an 85-yard interception and return to the Vandals' 4-yard line, and DeBoever's 1-yard sneak put the Cards (9-2) up two touchdowns.

Merrill answered with drives of 67 and 99 yards to take a 14-12 lead, then took advantage of W-P's fumbled kickoff return in the final minute of the half to go up nine points at the break.

Merrill (8-3) travels to Ravenna (9-2) next week for the regional title game.