Staff photo by Travis Rosenau Martin Luther College’s Christian Koelpin (90) rushes Crown College quarterback Diego Narezo during an Upper Midwest Athletic Conference college football game at the MLC Bowl in New Ulm Saturday.

NEW ULM — After a last-second loss a week ago to Greenville on a field goal, Martin Luther College suffered another heartbreaker Saturday afternoon on a last-minute touchdown.

Diego Narezo’s 7-yard touchdown pass to Robert Mabra with 25 seconds left spoiled MLC’s Homecoming and lifted Crown College to a 26-20 win in an Upper Midwest Athletic Conference football game.

Both MLC (0-6, 0-2) and Crown (1-4, 1-0) were seeking their first win of the season, and the Polars were able to get theirs in dramatic fashion. The Knights held a 14-0 lead at halftime before Crown was able to get its offense moving, completing passes to several different receivers with relative ease in the second half.

Narezo ended up finishing the game with 36 completions on 68 attempts for 342 yards, three touchdowns and an interception. Isaiah Anfield was Narezo’s top target, catching nine passes for 127 yards.

The Polars ran the ball just 12 times.

“They’re committed to their system, they throw the ball a ton, they’ve got talented wideouts and they’ve got a young quarterback who stepped in and played really well,” MLC head coach Paul Huebner said of Crown. “I want to say it’s his first start because they had a different kid the first couple weeks, but credit to them again for having a plan and sticking to it. Again, they didn’t get discouraged being down 14-0, they just stuck to it, kept throwing the ball and their receivers started making some big plays.”

Knights quarterback Max Nordlie completed 6 of 16 passes for 44 yards and two interceptions, while running back Carson Oestreich had 14 carries for 61 yards and a TD. Nordlie also had 13 carries for 57 yards and a score, while Zach Arndt had 11 carries for 46 yards.

Nathan Golisch, the UMAC Defensive Player of the Week last week, led the Knights in tackles with eight total tackles. He also had five pass breakups, while Brice Guce and Christian Koelpin each had a sack.

Crown first got on the board with 3:23 left in the third quarter on a 9-yard TD pass to Michael Downs before a 2-point conversion pass to Terry Warner had the Polars trailing 14-8.

Nordlie was picked off on the next drive, but MLC’s defense got tough and forced a turnover on downs. After just two plays, the Knights fumbled and gave the Polars the ball back at the MLC 23-yard line.

The very next play saw Narezo find Warner on a 23-yard TD pass to tie the game.

MLC retook the lead after Nordlie found room down the sideline for a 23-yard TD run, but the PAT was blocked and MLC led 20-14 with 7:16 left to play.

A 23-yard TD run by Josh Wallace tied the game at 20-all with 5:08 remaining. MLC then had five plays on its next drive before being forced to punt from its own 38.

A short 11-yard punt that took a bad spin was downed at the MLC 49, where Crown finished an eight-play drive with the game-winning score. After two incompletions, Nordlie was able to complete one more pass to Mason Cox for 13 yards, but time ran out on the Knights.

After being on the wrong end of back-to-back comebacks, Huebner said he’s still working to help his guys close down games.

“I take that on myself,” Huebner said. “First-year head coach here, I’ve got figure out how to get our guys to finish games. First couple weeks of the year they weren’t close games that we were playing, competitive, we hurt ourselves some and we played some better teams.

“Now that we’re in conference, we have enough talent to win, we just have to figure out how to do it, how to effecitvely close out a game when we have a lead. That’s two weeks in a row being up two touchdowns and not being able to finish the deal.”

After holding Crown scoreless on a 12-play opening drive, MLC took its first drive into the end zone. The nine-play, 79-yard drive was completed with a 10-yard touchdown run by Oestreich to the left side.

Crown’s first drive of the game ended with Narezo being picked off by Matthew Hillmer. No points came off that interception for MLC, however, as both teams started to have difficulty moving the ball.

The Knights were able to get the ball to the Crown 3-yard line early in the second quarter, but they turned it over on downs at the 5. But keeping Crown deep in its own territory did end up paying off for the Knights. With Crown forced to line up for a punt, Joey Ehlke blocked and recovered the punt in the end zone to give the Knights a two-touchdown lead with 9:13 left in the second quarter.

The Knights pulled off a fake punt and run of 36 yards late in the first half by David Baumann to set up shop at the Crown 17. A 23-yard field goal try by Matthew Evink hit off the post to finish the drive without points, however, and the Knights took a 14-0 lead into halftime.

“I think that Crown’s coaching staff did a good job of adjusting and scheming to take away our veer option,” Huebner said. “They’re smart guys. I know their head coach, meeting a little bit before the game and he’s got an option background, and I think that they did a good job of prepping for it. After that first drive, they adjusted a couple of things that made it a little but tougher for us to get to our blocks, get to the reads. So credit to them defensively, they just stuffed us.”

MLC will look for its first win of the season as it hosts Finlandia at noon Saturday.