THOUSAND OKAS, CALIF. – The Cardiac Cougars have outdone themselves!
 
Azusa Pacific, which has won 18 of 19 games decided by a TD or less over the past 3 seasons, put the crown jewel on that stat Saturday afternoon in a 54-51 on-the-last-play-come-back win at Cal Lutheran.
 
Luke Winslow's 9-yard lob pass to a leaping Kevin Carlsen with no time on the clock capped an amazing game in which Azusa Pacific rallied from its biggest deficit ever and needed every tick of the clock and then some to pull out the magical win.
 
Less than 11 minutes into the game, Cal Lutheran, behind its high-powered offense, roared out to a 27-0 lead, scoring on 9-, 39- and 58-yard pass plays along with a 64-yard run and a safety.  Had it not been for 3 blown PATs, the Cougar deficit could have been 30 points by the 4:07 mark of the first quarter.
 
Shell-shocked and somewhat ear-blistered, the Cougars went to work on a comeback that rivals last year's 59-52 win at Redlands when Azusa Pacific trailed 24-0 and 39-13 in the first half at Redlands.
 
Azusa Pacific out-scored Cal Lutheran 48-17 over the next 28 minutes of the game to assume a 48-44 lead after fullback Larry Crabtree bowled over a from a yard out for his second TD of the game.  The Cougars used big plays to highlight short scoring drives and used sustained drives to score the other TDs.  The comeback began with an 76-yard TD strike from Winslow to senior WR Caleb Willis.  On the next possession, Winslow found Carlsen for a 15-yard TD pass to cap a 7-play, 49-yard drive.  The Cougars pulled to within 7 at 27-20 when Winslow went long again, connecting with Willis for an 80-yard bomb with 9:45 left in the half. 
 
Undeterred, Cal Lutheran motored right back down the field on the ensuing drive, going 80 yards in just 105 seconds to push its lead to 34-20. 
 
However, Azusa Pacific scored 2 more TDs in the first half, one on a Shane Minton 35-yard run and the other on a Crabtree 2-yard blast with 50 seconds left in the half to seemingly highlight the comeback and knot the game at 34-34 before intermission.
 
But the Kingsmen offense was certainly royal in the first half, needing just 23 seconds to post another TD before halftime and then turning a Winslow interception into a 52-yard FG as time expired, giving Cal Lutheran a 44-34 halftime lead and some renewed pride after letting a 27-point lead slip away.
 
Perhaps gassed by the 78 first-half points, the 2 offenses could muster a "mere" 27 counters in the second half. 
 
And for the third straight week, the bus carrying the Cougar defense arrived at halftime, cause the men who played the second half could not have been the same who played the first half.  As had been the case vs. Redlands 2 weeks ago and again against Humboldt State last week, the Cougar defense tightened the screws over the final 30 minutes of the game, holding the Kingsmen to just 89 yards total offense (as opposed to 373 in the first half) and 1 TD.  However, that 1 TD nearly cost the Cougars the victory.
 
After Azusa Pacific assumed a 48-44 lead on Crabtree's second TD with 6:20 left in the game, Cal Lutheran put together its only sustained drive of the second half, going 43 yards on 12 plays, highlighted by Dorian Stitt's 5-yard run for his CLU-record-tying fourth TD of the game, giving the Kingsmen a 51-48 cushion with 1:58 left in the game.
 
True freshman Jonathan Lott, who was putting together the best game of his young collegiate career, returned the ensuing kickoff 49 yards to the Azusa Pacific 49-yard line to set up the Cardiac Cougars final heroics.
 
Fifty-one yards and 109 seconds separated Azusa Pacific from the goal line.  Obstacles that can be handled if a team has time outs.  The Cougars didn't.  And the heroic drive didn't start so glamorously.  Winslow misfired on his first 2 pass attempts to Carlsen and only a Kingsmen holding penalty kept the Cougars out of desperation.  Winslow was then sacked with 80 seconds left to put the Cougars in a second-and-17 situation at the CLU 47-yard line.  Winslow, who is in his first season as a full-time starter, showed no signs of anxiety, hitting Jimmy Travis on back-to-back pass plays of 13 and 19 yards to move the ball to the CLU 15-yard line with 25 seconds remaining.  Out of a Cal Lu time out, which was called to regroup the Kingsmen defense, Winslow missed Carlsen on a pass play with 21 second left.  On the next play, he rolled out and found Willis for a 6-yard completion along the sideline, but Willis couldn't get out of bounds to stop the clock.  The Cougars hurried to the line and Winslow spiked the ball with 2 seconds left to force Azusa Pacific into a fourth-and-4 at the Kingsmen 9-yard line. Instead of going for the game-tying FG (the Cougars had already had 3 PATs blocked on the day), Cougar coach Peter Shinnick opted to roll the dice and go for the win.  On the final play, Winslow lobbed the ball into the corner of the end zone, creating a jump ball situation.  As the ball reached the height of its arch the final horn sounded.  Carlsen then out-jumped a  pair of Cal Lutheran defenders, grabbed the ball and fell hard to the ground but hugged the pigskin all the way down for an amazing victory.
 
A penalty flag – the 26^th of the game -- came out on the play, giving Cal Lutheran a moment of hope that the TD would be waved off.   But it was just the Cougars being whistled for excessive celebration, an understandable infraction given the situation.
 
Winslow finished with career-highs of 380 yards and 4 TDs on 21-for-32 passing.  Willis collected a game-high 8 catches that covered a school-record 249 yards, breaking Dexter Davis' 1998 record of 237 set against La Verne.  Lott came off the bench to tally the third straight 100-yard rushing game by a different Cougars, amassing a team season-best 159 yards on 26 carries (6.1 avg.) while scoring 1 TD, a 2-yard run that pulled Azusa Pacific to within 44-40 on the Cougars' opening drive of the second half.  Lott also returned 5 kickoffs for 133 yards (26.5 avg.). Minton, who became a running back just 3 weeks ago after being recruited as a safety, ran for 117 yards on 13 carries (9.0 avg.) to post his second 100-yard game of the season.
 
Azusa Pacific finished with a school-record 632 yards in total offense.  Cal Lutheran collected 462 yards, including a career- high 201 on the ground by Stitt. 
 
With the win, Azusa Pacific keeps its NAIA playoff hopes alive. The No. 11-ranked Cougars improve to 5-2 on the season and could return to the top 10 when next week's NAIA Poll is released on Tuesday.
 
Cal Lutheran, which last week beat Menlo 37-32 when Menlo narrowly missed on a 20-yard pass on the final play of the game, falls to 2-3.