Blake Griffith wanted redemption, and he didn’t care what he had to do to get it.

The Boyd-Buchanan sophomore forward, nearly a hero in regulation of Thursday night’s District 5-A/AA soccer championship against Arts & Sciences, finally got to seal the deal in overtime. Griffith’s putback of a shot from Terry Driggers skipped past Patriots keeper Brandon Challener in sudden-death overtime for a 4-3 win.

“I didn’t care what it took to get that goal. It was going in,” said Griffith, who had a possible game-winner disallowed with three minutes to go in regulation with the score tied at 2. “After that one they took away from me, I knew I had to get the game-winner.”

Boyd-Buchanan (12-2-2) will host Notre Dame in Tuesday’s do-or-die region semifinals, while CSAS (11-7) will travel to Chattanooga Christian.

Griffith’s goal ended a back-and-forth match that needed 102 minutes to decide. After Preston Harris put the Patriots up 1-0 barely two minutes into the match, the Bucs were the clear aggressors, outshooting CSAS 21-10. They scored back-to-back goals at the 25:55 and 35:10 marks of the first half, both off the foot of Taylor Shull after prolonged possessions on the Patriots end.

CSAS tied it at 2 with under a minute to go in the half when Adam Wright knocked in a beautiful header off a corner kick. The score stayed tied through the second half, with each team missing two good scoring chances, the best coming on Griffith’s disallowed goal on an offside call.

The Patriots appeared to have seized control with 4:32 left in the first OT period when Steve Harris was taken down in the Boyd-Buchanan scoring box, resulting in a penalty kick. Wright easily made it 3-2 with a strong shot to the right of keeper Jake Lockert.

The celebration, though, was short-lived; 2:13 into the second overtime period, Driggers blasted a shot from just inside the box past Challener for the tie. When the period ended, Boyd-Buchanan coach Jason Owens made a gutty decision. He wanted the game over quickly, so he inserted another forward and instructed sweeper Driggers to play up.

“I wanted, at that time, to take it to them as hard as we could,” Owens said. “I told them if they did it right, it would take a minute. It took two, but that’s OK. The guys executed like we practiced.”

Griffith saw his opportunity when he poked the ball away from a CSAS player at midfield and rushed toward the Patriots goal with Driggers to the right and three defenders in front of him. He waited as long as he could before shooting a pass to Driggers, whose resulting shot was deflected by Challener. Griffith, though, had followed the play and managed to poke the ball in just past the recovering keeper.

“This is probably the greatest feeling I’ve ever had,” Griffith said. “It makes it even sweeter, after they beat us 1-0 earlier this year, to beat them on their home field. But now that we know we can do this, we’ve got to keep going.”

CSAS coach Ron Nance had nothing but compliments for the victors.

“They’ve improved dramatically over the year,” he said. “They’ve always been an athletic team, but this year they’re more skilled. They always play with a lot of heart, but this year they’ve mixed in some soccer skills. This is a painful setback, but we’re still playing. We’ve been in this position before and we’ve made it to the state, so we know it can be done.”