Franklin's final home football game of the 2025 season won't soon be forgotten.

With big plays and equally big mistakes on both sides, the Grizzlies battled Bluffton for 60 back-and-forth minutes and decided that wasn't enough. It took three overtimes to settle the affair, with Franklin making back-to-back big players in the third to pull out an exciting 59-57 triumph at Faught Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

"There were several heart palpitations many times throughout the game," Griz coach Mike Leonard said. "What a game of ebb and flow and roller-coaster rides ... we just kept fighting and found a way."

Neither team scored in the first overtime; the Beavers intercepted Franklin quarterback Marshall Kmiecik at the goal line, and Bluffton's 37-yard field goal try was blocked by Jordan Fonda. The visitors struck first in the second OT, getting a touchdown pass and following up with a two-point pass to go up 57-49. The Grizzlies needed to answer, and they did — Kmiecik found Jace Mohr for a 14-yard score and then extended the game on a two-point hookup between that same pair.

In the third overtime, settled by dueling two-point tries, Kmiecik hit Jeremy Lee in the right side of the end zone. The Beavers' attempted answer was turned away with Haidyn Bulmer making a tackle in the backfield to end the game and send the Faught faithful into a frenzy.

"Just sticking together, never giving up and getting it done," Bulmer said.

The Grizzlies (5-4, 3-2 HCAC) opened the game with a seven-play, 76-yard march that ended with a 14-yard scoring throw from Kmiecik to Mohr. Bluffton answered with a touchdown and a field goal to take the lead early in the second quarter, but Franklin regained the upper hand on its next possession, when a long Mohr kickoff return to just short of midfield set up a 5-yard TD keeper by Kmiecik.

A Beaver punt pinned the Griz offense at its own 3-yard line, but Kmiecik opened up the field with consecutive completions of 26 yards to Jeremy Lee and 40 yards to Fonda. Three plays later, Mohr finished off the march of 97 yards in 100 seconds with his second touchdown catch, this one a 13-yarder.

The visitors, though, came back with a pair of TDs in the last two minutes of the half, getting a score at the 1:13 mark, forcing a Griz turnover on downs at the Franklin 48 and then taking a 23-21 lead when Jashawn Wyckoff hauled in a 33-yard Tywuan Clark heave with 6.9 seconds remaining.

Kmiecik hit Lee for an 18-yard touchdown to open a busy third quarter and put the Grizzlies back on top, but Bluffton capitalized on a botched PAT snap, returning it for two points to keep the visitors within a pair at 27-25. A 2-yard scoring run by Trevor Winkles put Franklin up by nine before the Beavers responded with a touchdown and a field goal to briefly go up, 35-34. Franklin regained the lead with 2:32 left in the period when Kmiecik threw a 20-yard TD pass to Fonda; that pair hooked up for a two-point conversion as well, and the home team went into the fourth with a 42-35 edge.

Bluffton found the end zone to open the fourth period, but the potential game-tying extra point was blocked by Haidyn Bulmer, and a 13-yard scoring pass from Kmiecik to Fonda put the Grizzlies up 49-41 with 12:31 to go in regulation. Like most leads in this game, though, that advantage didn't last for long; the Beavers managed a touchdown and the tying two-point conversion with 6:47 remaining, setting up the extra periods.

Kmiecik finished the game with a career-high 429 yards passing for six touchdowns against two interceptions; the quarterback also ran for a team-best 64 yards. The Grizzlies had three 100-yard receivers on the day: Fonda (nine catches for 134 yards), Mohr (six for 126) and Lee (five for 100). Drew Servies had 10 tackles and a sack for Franklin on defense, followed by Bulmer and Haden Durnil with eight apiece. 

Franklin concludes the season next Saturday with the annual Victory Bell game at Hanover.

"Our guys will be excited for that," Leonard said. "They've got a really, really strong team, so it'll be a great battle, a great challenge."