Hard-hitting, gritty and scrappy? Sure.

Crisp, disciplined and mistake-free? Not so much.

The matchup had all the makings of a classic — the type you tell your kids about years down the road — and eventually lived up to the billing as Bonneville escaped with a 13-10 victory after a series of game-shifting plays in the final minutes concluded with the Lakers blocking a Bountiful field goal as time expired.

The two squads have developed a bit of a rivalry as the owners of the last three league championships. Bountiful, for its part, was also vying for its 14th consecutive region win, having not tasted defeat to a league opponent for nearly three calendar years.

“It’s a huge game. The Bountiful game always goes down to the wire and I didn’t expect anything less this week. No matter what, this is a really good rivalry,” Bonneville head coach Jantz Afuvai explained. “Top-notch team in Bountiful and you can kind of gauge how well you are by how well you play Bountiful every year.”

So, with just over seven minutes to play and the ball on the Bountiful 1-yard line, the Lakers were about to go up 14-3 — all but deciding the outcome to snap the streak and keep themselves undefeated in league play.

That’s when the chaotic close to the game commenced.

As the Lakers hurried to the line to punch it in, quarterback Jaxon Johnson was stripped of the ball in the pile, giving the Redhawks new life.

Bountiful embarked on an 11-play, 95-yard drive, chewing nearly five minutes off the game clock before scoring its lone touchdown of the evening on a 25-yard Emerson Geilman to Beau Burningham connection with 2:40 to play.

Unfortunately for the Redhawks, they left Johnson and company with too much time to operate.

Knifing through the Bountiful defense on quarterback keepers, Johnson moved the ball to the Redhawk 9. On third-and-3, he drew an offside penalty, giving the Lakers a first down at the 5. Isaac Mansaray did the rest of the work, sprinting around the right side for the go-ahead score.

“It’s two-minute drill and they’re dropping a lot of guys and that kind of leaves some room for me to run,” Johnson said. “I got some space and made some plays — thanks to my O-line, of course.”

However, a blocked extra point and 44 seconds left on the clock gave the Redhawks slim, but real, hope. They quickly moved the ball into Bonneville territory where Lakers senior Mason Tanner made a game-saving tackle along the sideline on a 31-yard Emerson to Brigham Morrison completion.

Bonneville then blocked a 45-yard Landon Zayas field goal attempt as time expired and the Lakers could finally celebrate the 13-10 victory.

“I’m overwhelmed,” Johnson said. “It’s a big-time game. We knew this is a game that we could possibly get, so we did our best and here we are.

Bountiful (2-3, 1-1 Region 5) earned points on its first possession of the game before its extended offensive dry spell. Zayas booted a 47-yard field goal that just cleared the crossbar to put the Redhawks up 3-0 at the 3:44 mark of the first quarter.

Meanwhile, the Lakers (3-2, 2-0) couldn’t make anything out of their first four possessions, punting twice, turning it over on downs and throwing an interception. Fortunately for Bonneville, Bountiful’s offensive output was equally ineffective with a pair of punts of its own and an interception following the field goal.

Bonneville’s interception gained, by Cameron Howell off a tipped pass, proved to be costly to the Redhawks. The Lakers handed the ball to running back Tifaga Havili on the resulting possession just before the break and he cashed the turnover in for a 3-yard touchdown run up the middle.

In the second half, Bonneville had chances to break the game open but failed to execute. After Havili intercepted a throwback pass across the field, the Lakers dropped a likely touchdown on a long pass downfield to a lightly covered receiver and ended up punting.

“It’s going to happen in games,” Johnson said. “We’re going to be in times of adversity and you just got to kind of, you know, learn from it, but move on and just go to the next play.”

After running for 1 yard on a single attempt in the first half, Johnson racked up 72 yards on 12 second-half carries.

“He’s got the green ticket to take off whenever he needs to and he’s got a huge supporting cast to throw to so, I mean, it’s pick your poison there for defenses that we play,” Afuvai said. “He’s such a big kid and he’s a load to take down, but we don’t want him getting hit a lot. He did what he needed to do to win. He marched us down there and got us the win, so it was great.”

The win makes it three straight for the Lakers, who visit Roy next week in another key contest.