Senior Robert Cashel couldn’t contain himself. He jumped up and down, celebrating and screaming, “We never gave up. We never gave up.”

No, the Park City Miners did not give up Friday night.

They did score 13 unanswered fourth-quarter points.

They did get a huge defensive stop on a 4th-and-1 play on their 34-yard line late in the fourth quarter.

They did finally read that Delta quarterback bootleg.

And they finally did get that first win of the 2010 season, coming back from a 19-7 deficit after three quarters to defeat Delta 20-19 at Dozier Field.

“We were never dead in the water,” head coach Kai Smalley said. “We tell our kids every time that they have to start every quarter. Our kids never gave up. That was it. They had no quit in them.”

A game that will be remembered as one of the most exciting in recent Miner football history painted a mural chock-full of heroes and spirit for a team that had struggled mightily through its first two games.

After earning a mere six yards of total offense in the third quarter, Park City had squandered a 7-6 halftime lead and was looking right into the barrel of the gun, down at the start of the fourth quarter.

Then, quarterback Paul Flake found junior wide receiver Jono Schettler on a post-route. Flake lobbed the ball just over the free safety as Schettler snagged the ball and took off 80 yards for the touchdown.

Clinging to a six-point lead with about four minutes left in the game and the ball at the Miner 34-yard line, Delta opted to go for the jugular and eat up as much of the clock as possible.

But Park City linebacker John Finch had other ideas. The junior read the Rabbit run right from the snap and made a huge hit on Delta running back Zach Harris to give his team one more shot at the win.

“It showed we could stop them,” Smalley said relating how his defense gained confidence throughout the game. “We knew that (Delta’s) a great second-half team, and they got after us in the second half, but I just had to remind the kids that if you stopped them before, you have to go out and do it again.”

It was Flake’s turn to win. And he put on a display of his potential on that final drive.

The junior found Cashel for a 25-yard strike down the sideline, and then scrambled away from the Delta defense to find Schettler for another Miner first down. He continued moving the chains by eluding the Rabbit defense and running for a first down that was compounded on by a facemask penalty on Delta, which resulted in an added 15 yards for Park City.

It was there that Blake Thorne sent Dozier Field into euphoria.

The senior running back punched in a 12-yard draw for his second touchdown on the evening and junior kicker Keenan Ward added the extra point. A raucous Park City crowd was in jubilation.

“Our guys stepped up. Our line stepped up, gave me a little bit of time, and our receivers ran their butts off and were in the right place at the right time,” Flake said.

Delta still had a shot. However, with 1:25 left on the Dozier Field scoreboard, Miner Jack Rinehart decided that his defense had been burnt enough by the Delta bootleg.

The junior defensive lineman flew in unmarked, read the pass, and leapt into the air and came down with the ball, essentially sealing Park City’s first win of the season.

“The linebackers started to fill (the gaps) and the defensive line was getting doubled teamed, and we just finally got a stop,” Rinehart said.

Asked how it felt to get one in the win column, Rinehart wasn’t bashful.

“It feels really good. It’s about time,” Rinehart said. “There’s a lot more to come.”

Smalley was more than impressed with his team’s ability to fight to stay in a game that could have meant a 0-3 start on the season.

“I think it was one of those things where these kids are used to winning, and they weren’t going to accept losing,” Smalley said.