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NATCHEZ — Carl McDonald Jr. scored the second of his two touchdowns and Jakel Irving added the two-point conversion run with about a minute left in regulation to force overtime as the Natchez High Bulldogs rallied to defeat the McComb High School Tigers 52-50 in three overtimes last Friday night at Tom F. Williams Memorial Stadium.

Neither team scored in the first overtime period. Then both teams scored eight points in the second overtime. But in the third overtime, Natchez High scored eight points while McComb was held to six points.

“Two weeks in a row we’ve scored 50-plus,” Bulldogs head coach Steve Davis said. “I’m proud of my guys for their resiliency and the fight they showed. McComb is a really good football team. They’ve got athletes all over the field.”

It looked like this game was going to end in regulation with McComb on top after the Tigers scored on a touchdown pass and successful two-point conversion pass to go up 36-28 with about five minutes left in the fourth quarter. But the Bulldogs had other ideas as they marched downfield to tie the game up at 36-all and send the game into overtime.

Natchez High used a balanced offense in this game instead of relying heavily on senior quarterback Kaden Walton. He threw for about 150 yards and three touchdowns while McDonald ran for over 100 yards and two touchdowns.

“Kaden, he’s become that quarterback. He had a good game. He made some good throws and had some good reads. Because he’s become a much better runner, teams have to account for that. They tried to come up with things to keep up with us because we run tempo,” Davis said.

Davis said that the offensive line deserves a lot of credit for moving their defensive lineman around and giving Walton time to throw the ball.

“I’ve gotta take my hat off to the offensive line. They’re an underrated bunch. They started slow, but they started throwing people around,” Davis said. “McDonald ran extremely hard. He’s our workhorse back. Jakel had a good game defensively as did Jeremiah Tillery.”

Natchez High (2-0) next plays at Vicksburg High School at 7 p.m. next Friday.