Busting out of the gate: Mustangs ride late second-quarter surge to 45-20 win over Uniontown
Laurel Highlands and Uniontown were involved in a whirlwind of scoring late in the first half of their Week Zero football game Friday night.
The Mustangs and Red Raiders combined to tally four touchdowns in a span of 1:56. LH put up three of them in taking a 31-14 halftime lead and went on to defeat their crosstown rival, 45-20, at Mustang Field.
“It happens. There were a couple crazy plays,” LH coach Rich Kolesar said. “Luckily we made enough of them to come out on the right end of things at the end of the half and helped lead the way to the win.”
Laurel Highlands’ Antwan Black Jr. accounted for two of those four late second-quarter scores with a 15-yard run and a 55-yard pass from Noah Lion and also returned a punt 62 yards to set up the Mustangs first touchdown in the first quarter.
Gio Guerriere also scored on a pair of TD runs and Lion ran in the first score for LH in the non-conference clash.
Parker Hoff, who recovered a pair of fumbles on defense and ran for 70 yards, contributed a 6-yard touchdown run and Tanner Bruzda tallied the rest of the Mustangs’ output with a 22-yard field goal and six extra points.
“I told them all their hard work paid off tonight,” Kolesar said of his postgame talk with his players. “These kids put in a ton of time in the offseason. We had 107 offseason workouts. We were grinding all summer and now they get to reap the rewards of all that with this first win.
“I was really pleased with our effort. We still have some things to focus on as coaches and we’ll address those and try to get better next week.”
Uniontown quarterback Cam Dugan and wide receiver Calvin Winfrey III hooked up for two of the Red Raiders three TDs on touchdown passes of 39 and 19 yards, and Notorious Grooms scored on a 20-yard jet sweep.
“I thought Cam Dugan did well enough for a young kid playing quarterback in his first start,” Uniontown coach Keith Jeffries said. “I thought he commanded things fairly well. And Calviin made a couple really nice catches for us.
“But we made some glaring mistakes, especially on defense. We’ve just got to get better.”
Uniontown opened the game with a solid first drive, moving the ball for a pair of first downs on the ground before being forced to punt.
Black raced 62 yards with the return to the Red Raiders 28 and Lion raced around the left side for a 28-yard TD on LH’s first play from scrimmage for a 7-0 lead.
Hoff recovered a Uniontown fumble late in the first quarter to set up Bruzda’s field goal early in the second to make it 10-0.
Uniontown’s defense set up its first score when Nathan Secrock stepped in front of a Lion pass for an interception at the LH 39.
Dugan connected with Winfrey, who tipped and then gathered in the pass, on the next play for their first score. David Ranitu, who was two for three on extra points, booted the kick through to pull the visitors within 10-7 with 9:11 left in the half.
Ranitu then recovered his own onside kick at the Uniontown 43 but the Mustangs forced a punt and then went on an eight-play, 59-yard touchdown drive capped by Guerriere’s 1-yard burst to make it 17-7 with 2:23 remaining in the quarter.
That set off the last-half scoring frenzy.
Hoff recovered his second fumble two plays later at the Uniontown 5 and Black scored following a 10-yard holding penalty from the 15 to give the hosts a 24-7 advantage.
Uniontown’s Jamarie Walker raced 78 yards with the ensuing kickoff to the LH 20 and Dugan hit Winfrey again three players later in the left side of the end zone for a 19-yard scored to again get the Red Raiders within 10 at 24-14.
“That was a big-time play for us by Jamarie,” Jeffries said. “He’s a good ball player and a tough kid. We didn’t get the ball to him as much as we wanted to due to the tempo of the game. He played good at safety tonight for us also.”
Another onside kick by Uniontown failed with Mark Reed recovering for Laurel Highlands at midfield. Two plays later Lion lofted a pass to Black on a middle screen and the senior broke free for a 55-yard touchdown and a 31-14 lead.
“Antwan’s a really special player,” Kolesar said of the NCAA Division-I recruit. “He had an excellent camp. The last three weeks he’s been amazing. I think if he keeps that up all year he’s going to have a special season.”
Kolesar lauded Lion, who rushed for a game-high 102 yards on 10 carries, as well.
“I was definitely pleased with him,” Kolesar said. “He’s had a really great offseason. There’s obviously things to coach up but I think he had a really good first night.”
The Red Raiders, boosted by a pair of LH 15-yard penalties, threatened to score again in the final seconds but Dugan’s pass was intercepted by Jonah Coleman on the final play of the half at the Mustangs 13.
“We kind of went to sleep there for about a 47-second span and gave up a couple quick scores to them at the end of the half,” Jeffries said. “I told the kids at halftime the score should be 17-14 and a dogfight. We just couldn’t recover from the mistakes we made.”
Touchdown runs of 20 yards by Guerriere and 6 yards by Hoff pushed the Mustangs’ advantage up to 45-14 in the third quarter.
“We’re a very young team and obviously there were some jitters for a Week Zero rivalry game but we just kept getting better and better as the game went on,” Kolesar said.
The Red Raiders used a two-play drive midway through the fourth quarter to cap the game’s scoring with Grooms following a 28-yard run by Michael Thomas with his TD from the LH 22 on the next play.
Laurel Highlands, riding the running of backup quarterback Nick Crouch, drove from its own 35 to the Uniontown 8 late in the game before Kolesar had his team go into the victory formation to drain the rest of the clock.
“Laurel is solid,” Jeffries said. “That’s one of the better teams we’ll play this year. They have some tough kids and solid ballplayers and of course Black is very good. They look like they have a nice group of kids here that work together hard.
“For us, it was the first varsity start for some of the kids and at times we didn’t execute quite the way we wanted to but there were a few positives as well,” Jeffries said. “I told the kids stick with us, we’re going to stick with them, and keep battling and fighting through and good things can happen to us.”
Laurel Highlands travels to Ambridge next week for another non-conference game.
Uniontown, entering its fourth year as an independent, will have a home game next week when it will honor the school’s Hall of Fame Class of 2024, but the opponent is still up in the air, according to Jeffries.
“We’re still waiting to find out who we’re playing because Perry (the originally scheduled opponent) may have to back out of that game,” Jeffries explained.”But we already have two other games lined up in case that happens. I’ll find out early enough to get another game plan ready if needed.”