Hostetler Gets Up, Knocks Out Champion : NFC: Giants’ quarterback leads drive to winning field goal as 49ers are denied shot at third Super Bowl title in a row, 15-13.

Jeff Hostetler was as good as gone, another near-miss hero crashed to earth by truth and consequences.

In the game-turning moments of the biggest game of his seven-year NFL life, Hostetler, a career backup, was the New York Giants’ last best chance to defeat the two-time defending world champion San Francisco 49ers, and Hostetler was hurt, squirming in pain after taking a hit to his right knee.

But, although his knee had buckled, his will had not. And although most observers never expected much anyway from a journeyman quarterback, Hostetler had another kind of journey to take.

To Tampa, Fla., and the NFC’s berth in Super Bowl XXV against the AFC champion Buffalo Bills.

So while the football world watched and waited for the familiar heroics of 49er quarterback Joe Montana, it was Hostetler, for years nothing more than Phil Simms’ caddie, who dramatically climbed back up from the grass and led his team to the NFC title, 15-13.

With several of his teammates grouped together in sideline prayer, kicker Matt Bahr finally won it when he sliced through a 42-yard field goal on the final play of the game before 65,750 at Candlestick Park.

And it was Montana, who cannot perform miracles if he cannot play, who sat on the bench in the final minutes after taking a devastating hit that bruised his sternum and broke a bone in his right hand.

“They hit us and we hit them, and we got up--that’s what championship football is all about,” Giant Coach Bill Parcells said. “You guys saw a hell of a game today.”

In this game, the Giants’ defense found a way once again to clamp the 49ers’ offense, a feat last duplicated in their 7-3 loss to San Francisco earlier this season but thought impossible once Montana and his teammates got into playoff time.

Then, when it got to desperation time, with the 49ers leading by a point and driving to seal the game with slightly less than three minutes left, it was up to linebacker Lawrence Taylor to pluck a Roger Craig fumble out of the air and give Hostetler the chance he would need to seize the victory.

The 49er defense had kept the Giants’ offense out of the end zone, but was undone by a 30-yard run by linebacker Gary Reasons on a fake punt and Hostetler’s nervy imitation of Montana in the clutch.

And off to Tampa the Giants go, four seasons after they captured their first Super Bowl title and led by a quarterback who in two playoff victories the past two weeks has disproved every doubt anyone ever had about him. Jeff Hostetler, Super Bowl starting quarterback, if you please.

Hostetler, who started only the fifth game of his career Sunday, re-entered the game with 9:17 left and the Giants trailing, 13-9. He led them to the two field-goal drives that stole the 49ers’ hopes of an unprecedented third consecutive Super Bowl title.

When Bahr was ready kick the winning field goal, his fifth of the game, appropriately it was Hostetler who held for it. For the first time in three seasons had to silently march to the locker room postseason losers, beaten by a backup.

“At first, I thought I was gone,” Hostetler said of his injury, caused by former Giant Jim Burt. “I was in total pain. But after a couple minutes, the pain kind of stabilized.

“And at that point in the game, at that point in the season, and at that point in my career, I knew I had to go back in.”

His point was taken. After convincing Parcells, Hostetler came back in after Matt Cavanaugh played four plays, and ducked and darted away from 49er defenders as if his knee had never been hyper-extended. On the day, Hostetler completed 15 of 27 passes for 176 yards, wasn’t intercepted, and ran three times for 11 yards.

“He plays within himself and within the scope of the offense,” Parcells said of Hostetler. “He’s a competitor, and he played great.”

On the first of the pivotal field-goal drives, Hostetler eluded the San Francisco pass rush on a key five-yard gain that should have been a five-yard loss, which set up Parcells’ gutsiest call.

Reasons, the up man in punt formation on fourth and two from the Giant 46, took the snap and charged through a huge hole in the middle for a 30-yard gain before running into 49er return man John Taylor.

“I was trying to set him up,” Reasons said, describing his finger-pointing as he approached Taylor, “but I had no moves. I just didn’t want to fumble.”

If the Giants fail on that gamble, they lose.

“Fortunately,” Parcells said with a sigh, “it worked.”

Three plays later, Bahr, who had missed a 37-yarder after making three field goals, kicked through a 38-yarder to narrow the 49er lead to 13-12 with 5:47 left.

The 49ers, meanwhile, had lost Montana a series earlier, when Giant defensive end Leonard Marshall crushed him from the blindside, causing a fumble that the 49ers recovered. Montana collapsed immediately after the hit, and did not get up for several minutes before being led to the sideline. He did not return.

That meant very able backup Steve Young was in the game to try to kill the clock after the Giants had closed to within one. On his first pass, he seemed to all but put the game away, connecting with tight end Brent Jones for a 25-yard gain to the Giant 49.

All the 49ers had to do was hold on, use up time, and check on those flights to Tampa.

“We were saying,” Giant inside linebacker Pepper Johnson said, “if you’ve never made a big play in your life before, you’ve got to make one now. Then it happened.”

It happened when 49er running back Craig took a handoff from Young at the Giant 40, then was immediately met by nose tackle Erik Howard, who knocked the ball out of his hands--and straight into the arms of Taylor, who clutched it tight and did not let go.

“That’s an example of the greatest defensive player of the past 10 years making a play, a great play to help his team win,” Parcells said of Taylor. “That’s what he had to do, that’s what he always does.

“That kid, I tell you, is going to the Hall of Fame on roller skates. No doubt. And he made the play.”

Then it was up to Hostetler, with the Giants a field goal away from Tampa and sitting on their own 43-yard line.

On the first play, Hostetler bolted right, was steps away from the sideline with 49ers in pursuit, then flicked a pass the other way to tight end Mark Bavaro in the middle of the field for a 19-yard pickup to the 49er 38--or about 10 yards away from certain Bahr territory.

“It was either throw the ball or get hit,” Hostetler said, “so I threw the ball and left it up to Mark.”

Then, a play later, Hostetler scrambled right again and found receiver Stephen Baker alone on the sideline for a 13-yard gain to the 49er 29 and 1:10 left to go. A flurry of timeouts, a couple of Giant plunges designed to run the clock and 1:06 later, Bahr lined up on the 49er 32-yard line amid silence, and his teammates’ prayers.

“I knew it was good,” Bahr said simply.

“It went up, I thought it was a little left, then it straightened out, went through,” Hostetler said, “and we were going to Tampa.”

When that fact struck the sellout 49er crowd, there was a stunned minute or two of quiet, then they simply turned around and headed up the aisles. The 49er locker room, too, reflected the team’s unfamiliarity with defeat.

“I’ve never heard this locker room more quiet than it was after the game,” 49er linebacker Michael Walter said.

The 49ers’ offense had rarely been so quiet itself in such a big game, and Montana, who missed the team’s last two practices because of flu, seemed a little off. He entered the game having won his last seven playoff games and completed almost 80% of his passes in those games, but never quite got going Sunday. He completed 18 of his 26 passes for 190 yards, but was sacked three times and threw only one touchdown.

“We hit Montana clean and hard,” Taylor said. “Again and again. We did nothing dirty, just tough, hard-nosed football.”

Hostetler, too, got hit clean and hard and often. But he got up.

“This is what you want,” Hostetler said, beaming as the media surrounded him in the chaotic Giant locker room. “You want to get to the Super Bowl. Then you want to win it.”