Coach Joe Glenn of Montana said: “We have a saying out here, `Still and clear.’ That means still snowing, clear up to your butt. I don’t know if it will snow, but we guarantee cold.”

Jimmy Freeman, a senior for the Mountaineers, said that his team will play with a mission.

But the Mountaineers were mere yards from continuing their journey.

The Mountaineers rallied and took top-ranked Montana to overtime, before Jimmy Farris put the brakes on by snagging a 15-yard touchdown pass from Drew Miller that lifted the Grizzlies to a 19-16 victory and into next Saturday’s title game against Georgia Southern.

The Mountaineers missed their chance at a winning touchdown in regulation.

“We were on the 8-yard line with 30 seconds left and had four downs to get it across and get to the championship game,” said quarterback Joe Burchette, recanting the final series of regulation when the Mountaineers had to settle for a game-tying field goal. “It’s heartbreaking. We were so close.”

The 13th-seeded Mountaineers, on the road for the third straight week and bidding to become the first team in 22 years of I-AA competition to get to the championship game without a playoff game at home, fell behind 13-3 in the fourth quarter in front of a boisterous crowd of 17,401.

After struggling early, Burchette led the Mountaineers back with two scoring drives in the final nine minutes. He teamed with Troy Albea, who had 11 catches for 177 yards.

On the first drive, that cut the gap to 13-10 with a 40-yard touchdown strike to Albea, Burchette nearly doubled his passing total with five completions worth 101 yards.

On the last one, another long march that took less than three minutes, a fourth-down screen pass to Albea, aided by a key block by Larry Brock, kept the Mountaineers alive and covered 38 yards. It got the Mountaineers to the 8-yard line with 25 seconds left.

“I’d rather for us to have been in front, and me handing the ball of, but I don’t mind being put on the spot,” said Burchette, a sophomore who completed 23 of 49 passes for 318 yards - the bulk of which came on the final two drives. “I think I thrive on that. It’s easier in a hurry up. You usually know where the defense is going to be.”

Unfortunately for the Mountaineers, the Grizzlies’ defense stood its ground in the final seconds, knocking down a pass and dumping Albea for a 2-yard loss. With no timeouts left, Burchette had to kill the clock on third down and the Mountaineers settled for a 27-yard field goal by Mark Wright as time expired.

“All they had to do was get a touchdown and they had it,” Joe Glenn, the Grizzlies’ coach, said. “But our defense didn’t give in. They didn’t let them have it. That’s the way it’s been with our defense all season.”

The Mountaineers had first possession in overtime, and managed just six yards on two running plays (the Mountaineers totaled just 28 yards rushing overall) before the Grizzlies’ Vince Huntsberger leaped and knocked away a pass to an open Albea in the end zone.

The Mountaineers called on Wright again. His 36-yarder was perfect and gave the Mountaineers their first lead, 16-13.

Wright had struggled early in the season and didn’t play regularly afterward, but Moore turned to him last week in the quarterfinals because of Moore’s concern over having kicks blocked and Wright’s ability to get height on kicks. Wright was a perfect 3 of 3 on a snowy day that left the turf slippery, and with his last two attempts into a backdrop of arm-waving Grizzly fans in the end-zone stands.

The Grizzlies took six plays on their overtime possession to end the Mountaineers’ run.

On second-and-11 from the 15, Farris, the Grizzlies’ top receiver, ran a fade route. Corey Hall, the Mountaineers’ heralded pass defender, trailed him to the right corner of the end zone. Miller’s pass was perfect.

“You’ve got nothing to lose on that play,” Moore said. “You’re either going to score on it or it’s going to be incomplete. You’re probably not going to get it picked. It was a good play to call. It was very well executed and the ball was thrown perfect. The only thing it might could have been was knocked away. I don’t think it could have been intercepted.”

Farris said: “(Hall’s) got those long arms. I thought he did a good job on the coverage, but the pass was just on the money.”

Hall said: “The only pass (Farris) really caught on me was the last one of the game. It was a good throw. It was just out of my reach.”

Glenn, in his first season at Montana, rushed to the celebration in the end zone.

“I was one of the first ones in the dogpile,” said Glenn, who took over a program that won a I-AA title in 1995 and was runner-up in ‘96.

“I had always wanted to do that and I knew they couldn’t call a penalty on me with the game over.”

For the Mountaineers, in the semifinals for the first time since losing there in 1987, their season ended 10-4.

“This was a well-played game between two good teams,” Moore said. “I’m proud of our perseverance in a hostile environment. This is a tough place to play. It’s a great atmosphere. To fight back and get it to overtime and then lose, it just hurts.”

The Mountaineers trailed 256-90 in total yardage in the first half, but stayed within a touchdown until the Grizzlies (13-1) drove 78 yards to take a 13-3 lead with 10:49 left.

While the Grizzlies celebrated a 19-16 overtime victory, Appalachian State’s players began packing for home after three weeks on the road and three straight three-point games. Their season had ended, one week earlier than planned.

Joe Best, the Mountaineers’ top tackler this season, looked dejected as he forced down a post-game sandwich and tried for the right words.

“Any loss is disappointing, but this one hurts a little bit more,” he said. “We were so close to the national-championship game.”

The Mountaineers stormed back from a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter and took the lead in overtime before the top-ranked Grizzlies persevered with a decisive 15-yard touchdown pass from Drew Miller to Jimmy Farris.

“We as coaches will get another shot at it, but you hurt for the players,” said Coach Jerry Moore, whose team was the first at Appalachian to reach the semifinals since 1987. “These guys really laid it on the line. Sometimes when we’ve been in the playoffs we haven’t played that way. This time they did.”

Before the season began, Moore said his senior-led team had as much or more experience and potential than any in his 12 years at Appalachian, and said that leadership and chemistry would be the key.

“We overcame some things to get here,” Moore said. “I’m proud of this team, but the only way you’re going to end the season totally happy is to win the playoffs.”

Playing on the road finally caught up to the 13th-seeded Mountaineers. Adding to injury for players was news of Georgia Southern’s road win against Delaware.

A victory by the Mountaineers would have set up an all-Southern Conference final and rematch with the Eagles, a team that beat them earlier this season. The Mountaineers avenged a regular-season loss to Troy State in the first round of the playoffs and had hopes of returning to Chattanooga for the championship game and atoning for its other loss, which came in a game at Chattanooga.

“Our main goal was to win it all,” said Corey Hall, who said he didn’t play as well as he would have liked after switching from safety to cornerback, but will have a chance to impress NFL scouts in the Blue-Gray game later this month. “We’ve talked about doing that ever since we lost to Florida A&M in the first round last year. We almost pulled it off.”

And the Mountaineers almost did it without some key players. Starters Jamie Lovern, Bryan Metts and Joey Gibson all had their season cut short because of injuries.

“I think about those seniors that got hurt,” said Albea, one of eight senior starters, including Best and Hall, that finished the season (the Mountaineers started the year with 12). “I know how much they wanted to play. That kind of motivated me. I knew they really wanted to be out there and I wanted to win for them as much as me.”

Best tried to look at the bright side.