Harmony comes from behind to beat loaded Celebration, 26-20
Khloe Cook-Osani scores the winning touchdown in overtime Thursday to give the Harmony Longhorns another OBC flag football championship, 26-20 in overtime over Celebration. (Photo/Michelle Kostuch)
Freshman quarterback Ivy Munns threw a touchdown pass to Khloe Cook-Osani on Harmony’s first offensive play of overtime to give the Longhorns a 26-20 come-from-behind win over Celebration in the championship game of the 2026 Orange Belt Conference Tournament Thursday at St. Cloud High School.
It was a tale of two halves, as Celebration – who came into the finals with a perfect 8-0 record – dominated the first half. Quarterback Isabel Meadows threw one touchdown pass ran for another and Sofia Sterry scored on a run as the Storm took a 20-0 lead into intermission.
While Meadows and the Storm offense were cooking, the Longhorn offense was stalling out and Celebration was making all the plays, including a pass that bounced off a Harmony receiver’s hands was picked off by Celebration’s Ally Witt.
“We made a ton of mistakes in the first half, but give Celebration a lot of credit, they kicked our butts in the first half,” Harmony coach Paul Strauch said. “I saw a lot of our heads hanging at halftime and a bunch of moping around. But our message to the players was simple, this game is not over and let’s just take it one play at a time.”
Harmony started the second half with a long, time-consuming drive only to see it stall inside the Celebration 10 on three consecutive incompletions – including another dropped potential TD pass. But the Horns defense came up with a interception that was returned to the Storm goal line. Two plays later, Munns hit Ellah Husbands for a touchdown to cut the gap to 20-6.
The third quarter ended with a Celebration three and out. Munns needed four plays to get Harmony into the end zone as Husbands ripped a tipped pass out of a defenders’ hands for a score. A conversion pass to Avery Jones made it a 20-14 game with eight minutes remaining.
After a Celebration punt, a huge 33-yard completion from Munns to Husbands gave Harmony a first down on the Celebration 14, While the Storm appeared to hold when they knocked down a 4th down pass in the end zone, but a Celebration penalty gave Harmony one more chance from the seven. This time, Munns completed a pass to Cook-Osani, who walked in for the score. Jones then made a great catch on the conversion to tie the score 20-20 with a minute to go.
Celebration failed to move the ball and punted it back to Harmony, but three plays gained just 11 yards and regulation ended at 20-20.
In flag football, each team gets four downs from the 10-yard line with the option to go for 1,2 or 3 extra points after a score. Celebration got the ball first and moved it to the two on a pass from Meadows to Ella Kolaric. On the next play, Meadows hit Witt for a touchdown but Celebration was called for illegal contact on a pass rusher. With ball pushed back to 11, Meadows misfired on three straight attempts to set up the Munns to Cook-Osani heroics.
“Extremely happy with the win, but we definitely had some luck on our side tonight,” Strauch added. “We take the ball in the second half and fail to score. We had some more drops. We got a call on a fourth down play that gave us another chance to score the touchdown to get within one and then we get a conversion on a tipped ball where our receiver ripped it from a defenders’ hand. Celebration is a terrific team, they are in our district and I know we will see them at least one more time in the playoffs.”
