It took three weeks of waiting, and 39 minutes to turn the tide, but it was worth it.

Finally taking the field for the first time in 2022, the Grand Canyon University Flag Football team spent the entire game Saturday in Scottsdale trailing before scoring the game-winning touchdown with a minute left to pull out a thrilling 13-7 win in Week 3 of their season. The victory evened their overall record is 1-1 and moved them into a 3^rd-place tie in the City of Scottsdale Division 2 Flag Football League.

After dropping their first game due to forfeit, and then finding out at the last minute that last week's games were postponed due to lack of available officials, the 15-person roster was itching to finally see some time between the lines, but found themselves on the 'down side' of the scoreboard for most of Saturday morning. Trailing, 7-0, throughout most of the first half, Lopes' sophomore quarterback (and co-head coach) Sam Martin broke through with a 30-yard scamper to the end zone to get the Lopes on the board with four minutes left, but the missed conversion left GCU trailing, 7-6, at the half.

The second half was a defensive stalemate for the first 19 minutes. Finally, getting the ball with only a minute left, Martin went for the big play and found it, hooking up with fellow sophomore Kristian Fralich on a 60-yard TD strike to suddenly put the Lopes up by six. The Lopes' opponents were forced to throw 'Hail Mary' passes in desperation, and the last one was picked off by GCU's Patrick Golden in the end zone to secure the win.

The Lopes are back in action at Vista Del Camino Park in Scottsdale this Saturday, October 8 at 9AM.