ATHOL — Playoff intensity prevailed in Friday night’s football game at Thomas J. O’Brien Field, no matter what the Walker rating system had to say about it.

With three lead changes inside the final three minutes, Athol High School landed the last punch with 34 seconds on the clock, when quarterback Trever Mousseau hit Mason Barrieau with a 49-yard touchdown pass that gave the Red Raiders a thrilling 21-20 victory over Hoosac Valley Regional High School.

Barrieau went high in the air against the right sideline to pluck the ball away from a pair of defenders, then spun away and sprinted down the sideline for the game-winner. Mousseau’s two-point conversion pass was incomplete as the Raiders tried to bump their lead to three.

Athol (6-3) still had to weather Hoosac’s last possession, following Vance Eugene’s 30-yard kickoff return to the Hurricane 40. Eugene hit a leaping Nick Waterman for 27 yards down the middle to the Athol 36 with five seconds to go, but that’s as far as Hoosac got before the final gun.

Both teams had narrowly missed out on Western Mass. Division IV playoff qualification, but played a high-level game worthy of the postseason field.

When the teams last faced each other in the 2014 season opener, Hoosac clobbered the Red Raiders, 68-8. Athol coach Bill LaRose joked, “This one point (margin) tonight erases those 68 points from my memory bank.

“Those are two playoff-caliber teams tonight, no question about it. The only way to beat this team was to control the football. We came up short on the first drive and I thought that was going to come back to haunt us. The Wing-T is a ball-control offense, but it got us down the field in (the last) 1:07, too.”

Athol lost the ball on downs at the Hoosac 6 on its first possession of the evening, but got it right on its next series, with a 14-play, 74-yard march that took 7:39 off the clock. Nick Casella went the final two yards for the opening score, with Kris Selanis tacking on the extra point to make it 7-0 with 3:21 left in the first half.

That lead carried into halftime, after the Hurricanes (3-5) failed on fourth-and-5 from the Athol 35 in the final seconds.

Hoosac came charging out of the break with its own 15-play, 65-yard drive that lasted 8:25. The Hurricanes converted a pair of fourth downs, including fourth-and-3 from the Athol 5. Steve Stodja took a handoff from Eugene and slanted over the left side for the touchdown, then ran in the two-pointer himself, to give the visitors an 8-7 edge with 2:35 to go in the third.

Stodja was the man on the spot less than a minute later, when a bad Athol exchange from center sat tantalizingly on the turf before Stodja could scoop and score on a 38-yard return. With two touchdowns in 38 seconds, Hoosac owned a 14-7 lead.

The Raiders took over with 1:57 remaining in the third and put on a ball-control clinic, moving 66 yards in 19 plays in an eye-popping 10:04. That included four fourth-down conversions, the last of which, at the Hoosac 11, came on a pass-interference call in the end zone that put the ball at the 2-yard line. On second-and-goal, Mousseau rolled left and found Isaac Raulston in the back left corner of the end zone. Trailing by a point, Mousseau then shaped to pass on the two-point try before tucking the ball and taking it in. With 2:53 left in the fourth, Athol held a 15-14 lead.

It was far from safe, after Eugene put Hoosac in great shape with a 37-yard kickoff return to the Hurricanes’ 47. His 37-yard burst on a quarterback draw gave the ‘Canes a first down at the Athol 13, and Eugene did it himself from there on another delay. The two-point run failed, but Hoosac went up 20-15 with only 1:07 on the clock.

With the two-minute offense suddenly in vogue, Mousseau completed passes of 11 and six yards to Tyler Lutz to move Athol to the Hoosac 49, setting up the game-winning heave, catch and run by Barrieau.

Robbie Nelson carried 23 times for 67 yards to lead Athol, followed by Lutz with 55 yards on 10 tries. Mousseau threw for 80 yards on 5-of-8 passing.

Eugene led the Hurricanes with a game-high 108 yards on eight carries, while completing 3-of-8 passes for 24 yards.

With so many clock-consuming drives, Athol held a 250-226 advantage in total offense, with 26:27 of possession time to Hoosac’s 17:33.

The teams now await their assigned Week 10 matchups next weekend.