Bang the drum slowly. The football king of the South Atlantic Conference is dead.

Carson-Newman died a slow death in the second half Saturday at Shuford Stadium. It was there, under a bright autumn sky, that unbeaten Catawba assumed the throne with a somewhere-over-the-rainbow 13-10 victory.

“Anyone who says this doesn’t hurt is lying to themselves,” C-N defensive tackle William Hyppolite conceded after Matt Gross kicked a last-second, game-winning field goal. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m standing here. I saw it. But I don’t believe it.”

Even Mr. Ripley might have trouble comprehending the events of Oct. 28. The Eagles seemingly had a mental vice grip on Catawba, winning 12 of 13 showdowns between 1988-99. They had claimed the last four, including a 28-25 decision that pitchforked Catawba out of last year’s Division II playoffs.

This game — and another conference championship — was their’s for the taking, perched on a nearby pedestal. Except, violins please, except for one small problem.

“We didn’t grab it,” said quarterback Leonard Guyton. “The little things we needed to do, we didn’t. We had it for a while and then starting hurting ourselves. Every time we made a good play, we got a penalty or did something stupid.”

It’s nothing new. The SAC’s most-penalized team was flagged 18 times for 121 yards in damages. Any coach will tell you that giving it away is not the way to win a championship.

“Catawba’s a good football team,” said longtime coach Ken Sparks of David Bennett’s troops. “We gave them more help than they needed today. That was a whole bunch of penalties.”

This gritty, defense-minded battle between the SAC’s Boardwalk and Park Place teams wasn’t decided until a pair of critical plays unfolded in the final 78 seconds. The first, a mishandled snap by C-N punter Jonathan Luquire, gave Catawba the ball on the enemy 14-yard line with 1:18 remaining.

“It just slipped through my hands,” Luquire said after a feed from long-snapper Nathan Buice arrived shoulder-high on his left side. “It was my fault. You can’t say much after something like that happens.”

Buice could — even if the 205-pound sophomore didn’t see the play. “I had no idea because I snap blind, looking up,” he said. “I snapped the ball and ran down my lane. Next thing I knew the Catawba crowd was going wild.”

That was nothing compared to the coming-of-age celebration that transpired two handoffs and three timeouts later. The scoreboard clock read 0:01 when Gross split the uprights with a 24-yard field goal. At least one Carson-Newman defender had a shot at rejecting it.

“I busted through a gap and thought I had it blocked,” said Hyppolite, a 6-4, 275-pound Hall of Pain lineman. “It went through both my arms, maybe two feet over my head.”

Teammate Chris Butler, who had one of three C-N interceptions, also came close. The junior cornerback angled in from the right side, only to find no one home when he got there. “I was trying to time my rush,” he said. “But they caught me off guard with a quick snap. I was there, but I really didn’t get the push off I wanted.”

C-N ( 7-2, 4-2 SAC), now finds itself on the outside looking in. Adding another chapter to its storied postseason history will take some doing. Four teams from the South region will qualify for the national playoffs, and the Eagles were ranked third prior to kickoff.

“It’s over unless a whole bunch of people get beat that aren’t supposed to get beat,” said Sparks. “It’s strictly in the hands of somebody else now. It would take a miracle, but I believe in miracles. Do you?”

Guyton, who completed only six passes for 45 yards, doesn’t like C-N’s odds.

“It’s depressing. I mean, even in high school I never went home for Thanksgiving. I never had to sit out the playoffs. Now there’s a good chance of that.”

Somebody set a place for Carson-Newman. The Eagles should be home for the holidays.

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David Shaw is a sportswriter for the Post.