Unlike last year, however, Fredonia ended a matchup with Medina with a different type of emotion — pure elation.

“I feel amazing,” Fredonia quarterback Ethan Fry said after the game. “Our team has been through so much. … This is all we’ve been talking about. This game was so personal.”

In a rematch of last season’s sectional final, the Fredonia Hillbillies came away with a 29-22 win over defending champion and top-seeded Medina in the Section VI semifinals Friday to earn a spot in the championship game Thursday at 6 p.m. at Highmark Stadium.

“I feel awesome, not so much for me, but for these kids,” said Fredonia head coach Greg Sherlock. “I wanted it bad for them because they knew how bad it was (last year).”

OBSERVER Photo by Ashleigh Brown Fredonia’s Micah Davis dives toward the pylon as a Medina defender attempts to force him out of bounds.

After an entire year of re-reading articles, statistics, and the score of last season’s loss to Medina in the championship game at the home of the Buffalo Bills, only a 90-minute bus ride to Medina High School on Friday night preceded the long-awaited matchup. When the Hillbillies stepped off the bus and walked into the biggest game of the season to date, they had their minds set on redemption, and they got it.

“This is the game we wanted. We knew we were going to play them again. We had this game circled the entire year,” said Fredonia running back Micah Davis, who accounted for the first two Fredonia touchdowns on the night. “Since that day last year, we had the score from last year in the locker room, we had the newspaper from last year in the locker room, we had how many days it’s been since we last played them in the gym. We wanted this. We were hungry. … We just needed to execute and that’s what we did.”

Tied at 14-all at the half and still tied at the same score after three quarters, a pair of fourth-quarter Ethan Fry passes lobbed into the end zone wound up in the hands of Hillbillies receivers to give Fredonia (9-1, 5-seed) a late lead over Medina on two separate occasions.

“They call him a gunslinger for a reason. He takes chances,” Sherlock said of Fry, who threw three touchdown passes in the victory, with two interceptions.

Early in the fourth quarter, Fry found Jay Hawk on a jump ball for a 21-14 lead with 9:59 left in the game.

“It was awesome. I don’t have much else to say. It was just awesome,” said Hawk, a first-year varsity converted basketball player. “I’ve played basketball my whole life. (I thought) just box out and get the rebound.”

But No. 1 Medina (8-2) took a one-point lead with 6:35 to go on a 2-point conversion run after a touchdown pass.

Again, Fredonia responded. A lob into the end zone from 13 yards out fell in the hands of Davion White for the go-ahead touchdown with 4:21 left to go.

After the second of the two touchdowns — just like the second of two shots at Medina in the past two seasons — Fredonia came away victorious.

The Fredonia defense came up with the stop it needed, when Keegan Whitfield recovered a fumble forced by Payton Glavey with under four minutes left in the game. Already with the lead, Fredonia had the chance to run the clock out on Medina’s season — and that’s exactly what happened.

Fredonia now awaits its opponent to clinch a spot in the championship game, as 2-seed Lackawanna and 3-seed Salamanca meet this afternoon in the other Class C semifinal matchup.

“We’re just going to enjoy this tonight,” Fry said after the win. “Tomorrow we’ll see who wins, and then Sunday we’re locked in. … We aren’t stopping at Highmark.”