TROY >> Senior quarterback Noah Oury was aware of the weight giveaways could have in tilting the advantage towards Troy’s run-heavy rivals Friday night.

The first of his two that landed in the hands of the opposition was returned for a touchdown by Athens junior Nathan Piggott.

“I had two picks, and that’s not up to my standard,” Oury said. “But (in terms of) putting them behind me, I just had to think that this is bigger than just me. It’s the whole team. I’m not gonna fold just because I made two mistakes … I’ve never been the type of person who allowed a pick to get to me.”

More defining than his mistakes, Oury rushed for 148 yards and two touchdowns, including a go-ahead touchdown midway through the fourth quarter to help the Colts defeat the Red Hawks 21-14.

“I talked to my dad after the game,” Oury said. “I was like, that one was God. I didn’t deserve to win that game, I made too many mistakes. But my family and God just carried me along to the victory.”

He was featured prominently on the game-winning drive that started from Troy’s 35-yard line and began with a 36-yard run by the signal-caller. Later, Oury picked up 11 yards to convert on third down, then ran it 16 yards to the 1-yard line before finishing the job to give the Colts their first lead of the night with 6:46 remaining.

“That felt so good, and that was all my lineman, to be honest,” Oury said. “(On the long run) that was teh biggest hole I’ve seen in my life, it opened straight up the middle, and I just ran. Yeah, I really credit my lineman, they won us this game.”

Athens moved the ball across midfield on a pass interference call and a completion from Andrew Dunlap to Piggott, but turned it over on fourth down with an incomplete pass compounded by offensive pass interference and an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that gave Troy the ball back in Athens’ territory.

The Red Hawks managed stops to get one last possession, and did complete several passes to again get into Troy’s half of the field, but Colts senior Jaielen Peacock intercepted a pass with 52 seconds left near the 20-yard line to give his team its fourth win in a row over Athens.

“My freshman year, the senior class around me, it was a special group,” Peacock said. “We were down (to Athens) my freshman year and ended up winning. That class really showed us how to handle business, especially against rivalry teams.

“It feels great, and it was just a great team win.”

After a scoreless opening quarter, the pick-six opened the scoring for the Red Hawks just over a minute into the second, but it only took another half-minute for the Colts to deadlock the score as Peacock took a handoff out of shotgun, bounced it outside to the right and scampered 50 yards, making it 7-7.

Athens countered by showing how hard its wing-T offense can be to stop, continually pounding the rock until Andrew Dunlap took it in himself from just several yards out to restore the Red Hawks’ lead, 14-7, with 6:20 left in the first half.

“I play scout quarterback sometimes, and even myself, I have to look at the play like seven times,” Colts head coach Chris Frasier said regarding the difficulty of stopping that offense. “I’m like, ‘This is hard.’ Fake left, fake right, give left, you know what I mean? I know from doing that it’s hard, and they can do it better than I can. The concealing the ball, making sure the running backs are getting tackled is hard.”

Not for the first time of the opening half, Athens got a fourth-down stop just inside the red zone to close it out, and the Red Hawks’ defense continued to make plays in the third quarter when their second interception of the night prevented the Colts from potentially tying the game.

The Colts, though, capitalized on good field position when a poor punt by Athens gave them the ball at the Red Hawks’ 27-yard line. Peacock (18 carries, 121 yards) moved the chains twice before Oury capped off the short drive with a TD run from three yards out that made it 14-14 with 11:07 remaining.

The Oury-centric drive put the Colts ahead when they got the ball back again.“(Noah’s) one of our toughest players,” Frasier said. “He’s been on varsity for three years. I don’t know how many carries he had today, but he got smashed at least 20 times. We ask a lot of that guy running the ball, so props to him for being able to do those things.

“In my head, you know, he threw those two picks, and we were running the ball on them, so someone in my headset was like, ‘Let’s just run it on them.’ And we ran it behind our left tackle (Lucas Tic) who’s going to Grand Valley and gave it to our best kids, Noah, Jaielen, and that was our game plan going through.”

After busting a four-game losing streak the week prior with a 28-25 victory over Bloomfield Hills, the Red Hawks (2-6, 1-5) will close out the year with a non-conference game at Fraser.

Troy, meanwhile, improved to 4-4 with the win, and now has a chance to not only impact the OAA Blue race with a game at North Farmington — the Raiders are unbeaten in the league — but also put themselves in position for a playoff spot.

“There’s no more time to mess around,” Oury said. “I’m gonna have no life (this next week). I’m going to be at eight o’clock. I’m watching all the film I can. I’m not talking to anybody. It’s straight business. I take this seriously. I love this game; it’s something I want to pursue the rest of my life. So yeah, I’m not gonna leave anything on the table when it comes to this week, because it could be my last as a Troy Colt, and I love these boys, so I don’t want that to happen.”