Chalmette was trailing Hahnville for most of the way as a lower seed on the road, but the script flipped in the second half.
Chalmette fought back to score 21 points in the fourth quarter in a 35-31 comeback victory over Hahnville to advance to the Division I nonselect quarterfinals. The Friday night regional round contest saw a total of five lead changes in the fourth quarter.
Hahnville scored the first two touchdowns of the game but couldn't contain Chalmette's versatile attack led by sophomore quarterback Breez Wilson and several different skill players.
Wilson was tested in the closing minutes after Hahnville had retaken the lead for the second time, but the sophomore was able to find Owls wide receiver Dana Antoine in the end zone from eight yards out for what ended up being the game-winning touchdown with 46 seconds left.
"Our young quarterback on the last touchdown he threw came off the primary target and found the second guy," Chalmette coach Jason Tucker said. "For a 10th grader to do that in that moment was awesome."
Hahnville had one more chance to take the lead in the closing seconds, but the Owls defense came away with a stop as time expired after batting down a Tigers pass in the end zone.
"Our defense had a good stop there at the end," Tucker said. "Our guys played hard. Our guys believed we were winning tonight."
Hahnville quarterback Landen Teague finished with 193 passing yards on 12-of-21 passing and two touchdowns, both of which were caught by Kobe Louis, who led the Tigers with 70 receiving yards on four receptions.
Louis' second score from 18 yards out gave Hahnville the lead back in the fourth quarter, but Chalmette immediately answered with a 99-yard kickoff return from Ja'den Williams.
A dynamic wide receiver, Williams led Chalmette in receiving with five catches for 88 yards and a touchdown along with the return touchdown and a 30-yard pass completion to Wilson.
"They said that before the game to take a chance whenever we get out of the end zone and run it," Williams said. "Do what we can with it, and I just caught it and went on from there. Just followed my blockers."
Wilson completed 13 of 18 passes for 173 yards and two touchdowns, the first of which was an 11-yard pass to Williams. Wilson also ran 34 yards and a touchdown on 12 carries.
"The mindset was it doesn't matter what the score is, we've just got to keep scoring," Wilson said. "Even if we were down by a lot, we just had to keep scoring and show what we had. The whole offense did a great job of that."
Hahnville running back Calvin Smith had a team-high 145 rushing yards on 20 carries and a pair of touchdowns. Smith's second score put the Tigers up by three with 3:55 to go in the game.
"I've had the pleasure of coaching a ton of running backs, and (Smith) is as good or better than all of them," Hahnville coach Greg Boyne said. "He's a perfect example of what we wanted to bring back to this program."
Axton Lopez was Chalmette's leading rusher with 39 yards on 10 carries and scored their second touchdown of the game from eight yards out.
Chalmette (9-3) advances to quarterfinals as a No. 24 seed and will face No. 1 Neville next week on the road.
Hahnville (8-3) saw their season come to an end but saw a vast improvement from last year in Boyne's first season as head coach.
"I'm proud of this whole group," Boyne said. "They rekindled something in this community that had been missing for a while. We're on track to where Hahnville's supposed to be."