By Phil Lozen for AnnArbor.com

On a cold, rainy homecoming night, a shorthanded Saline High School football team nearly pulled off a stirring comeback.

The Hornets erased a 20-point deficit only to see their hopes dashed when visiting Monroe scored with one minute, 38 seconds left in Friday's game to escape with a 35-28 win and remain undefeated.

Saline, meanwhile, suffers its fourth loss of the year and finds itself in the unenviable position of needing to win its final three games, and get some help, to make the MHSAA playoffs.

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The game was a true tale of two halves.

Monroe owned the first half, outgaining Saline 304-171 and taking a 27-7 lead into the locker room. The Hornets ran more plays and held the ball longer in the opening half, but couldn’t break through on offense, gaining only 61 yards on their first four drives.

Monroe, meanwhile, used big plays to score on its first three drives, the first on its second play from scrimmage when Anthony Bosanac hit Marvin Antwih for a 61-yard touchdown.

Following a missed Saline field goal, it only took Monroe four more plays to strike again, this time on a 62-yard sprint up the middle by Alec Swinderman. Alec Stewart powered his way into the end zone on an 11-yard run with 9:06 left in the half to put the Trojans up 19-0.

“We’ve seen that from them all year,” Saline coach Mike Glennie said of Monroe’s big play ability. “They’ll have drives of two first downs and a 60-yard run. That was the tale of the first half for us.”

Saline finally answered with a 77-yard drive, capped by Hunter Leslie’s 36-yard scamper on a toss to the outside, cutting the lead to 19-7.

Monroe went 80 yards in six plays and got a Jacob Nadeau 1-yard touchdown run with just 31 seconds in the half for a 27-7 lead.

Things were completely different when the teams came back out on the field for the second half. Saline’s defense, which was without seven starters for various reasons including a flu that ravaged the team this week, went into lockdown mode.

Monroe’s first four drives of the second half tallied just 32 total yards, while the Hornets’ Will Miller recovered a pair of fumbles.

“We saw a group of kids that were lacking confidence in the first half start to play,” Glennie said of the second half resurgence. “We had a rough week, and their kids, they came out and didn’t know what they could do. Then they realized they could do it, but we played a half and not a game.”

On offense, Saline opened the half with a pair of Justin Barnes 1-yard touchdown runs to cut the Monroe lead to just six. Hornets quarterback Reece Dils was 3-for-3 passing for 42 yards in the two drives.

Barnes turned the first of Miller’s two fumble recoveries into six points with his third one yard touchdown run of the game with 5:39 left. Dylan Mulder’s point-after kick gave Saline its first lead, 28-27.

“We found our confidence in the second half,” Barnes said. “We really started firing off the ball.”

Miller’s second fumble recovery came just two plays later, giving the Hornets the ball back on the Monroe 19 with 5:22 left.

Facing 4th-and-4 with 3:55 left, Saline initially lined up for a field goal try, but following a timeout, the Hornet offense came out onto the field. An incomplete pass gave Monroe the ball back with 3:50 left and 87 yards to go.

Following an incomplete pass, Bosanac’s fifth in a row, the Trojan signal caller hit his next three passes for 12, 17, and 17 yards to get Monroe to the Saline 33-yard line with just under two minutes left.

Monroe called a daring double handoff, and it paid off as Nadeau sprinted toward the left corner of the end zone to put Monroe up 35-28 with just 1:38 left.

Saline’s final drive ended when Gage Hammond took a handoff from Dils and lofted up a long pass that was intercepted by Monroe’s Thomas West, ending Saline’s comeback hopes.

“People don’t see it, but these are guys that are fighting and playing with their hearts,” Glennie said. “They’re out of position and doing things they haven’t been asked to do before, but I was proud of their effort tonight.”

Glennie knows his team needs to put it together and get some help to make the playoffs.

“Pioneer made it last year (with five wins), but you can’t win five until you win three,” he said.

Saline (2-4, 1-3 SEC Red) heads to Huron next week while Monroe (6-0, 3-0 SEC) hosts Pioneer.