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Mustangs surprise Raiders with 2nd-half surge

By Travis Rosenau 6 min read

NICOLLET - It was no secret what the Buffalo Lake-Hector-Stewart Mustangs needed to do Tuesday night against a Nicollet Raiders squad that defeated them earlier in the year: win the turnover battle and limit the Raiders' big plays.

The sixth-seeded Mustangs won that turnover battle 4-2 and scored 30 unanswered points to power their way to their first playoff win since 2018 with a 30-8 win in the first round of the Section 2, Nine-Player Football Tournament game at Nicollet High School.

"It's a big deal because like I told the kids at the end of the game, I think it's the fifth time in 25 years that BLHS in general has won a playoff game," Mustangs head coach David Vacek said. "And the 2018 football season was the last time we won a playoff gane. Almost 10 years. We had two years rebuilding, we had two years of JV only and two years coming back with super young guys playing varsity and just getting handled quite a bit. So seeing these guys being able to enjoy big games like this is a lot."

The third-seeded Raiders (4-5) took to the air in hopes of getting some of those big plays they've been accustomed to this season, but their first drive ended with a turnover. In what started out as a nice drive, Raiders quarterback Abe Madson lobbed a pass to the end zone from 15 yards out that was picked off by John Willert. Willert tried to do something with the pick but was tackled at the 1 after taking it out of the end zone.

The Mustangs (3-6) moved the ball to their own 39 but ended up turning it over on downs, which Madson capitalized on with a 33-yard completion to a leaping Henry Kennedy that set the Raiders up at the BLHS 10. A sweep run by Luke Warmington ended the quick drive with a 10-yard Raiders touchdown and 8-0 lead after a 2-point conversion run by Warmington.

The Raiders forced BLHS to turn it over on downs after that but fumbled the ball away and the Mustangs made that count, finishing their next drive with a 1-yard TD run by Jesse Volmer, tying it up on a 2-point conversion run by Michael Markgraf Jr. with 4:50 left in the half.

After forcing the Raiders to turn it over on downs, the Mustangs kneeled and took an 8-8 tie into halftime.

"They pretty much had the same game plan, we had pretty much the same game plan, too, they just executed a lot better," Nicollet head coach Cory Jans said. "Last game when you go back and watch the film, I can't count how many shots they had off play-action plays that they just weren't able to connect and you saw it in the first half [this game], they had somebody open and he just drops it or misses it by a few feet. That was kind of a similar story to last time we played them doing the same thing here, it was just some of those connected."

The Raiders lost senior defensive leader Bo Maas to injury in the second quarter, someone Jans said was a tough player to try to replace for the Raiders defense in the second half.

It was all Mustangs from their out, completing their first drive of the second half with a 23-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Shane Kramer to Cayden Wiggins. Markgraf Jr.'s 2-point run made it 16-8.

After the Raiders had the first and only punt of the night, both teams traded a fumble after that until Kennedy intercepted a pass and helped set the Raiders up with a chance to tie it up. The Mustangs stopped the Raiders at the BLHS 20, however, and proceeded to score on their next two drives to put things away. The first of back-to-back scoring drives came on another Kramer-to-Wigging TD pass, this time 27 yards, with Wiggins adding a 2-point run for a 24-8 lead. The next touchdown came after a Raiders fumble on a 54-yard TD run by Russell Johnson to give the Mustangs the 30-8 lead.

"Running power offense is always something we've tried to do, right now we have the kids to do it effectively," Vacek said. "We've got a good handful of running backs we can sub in and still get good production out of. Offensive linemen, we've got some big, young offensive linemen that we're running right now on varsity and it just helps with our passing game because we force the opponent to cram the box with guys and that opens up that deep stuff for us."

Like he's done throughout the year, Madson completed his share of passes around the field, but the Mustangs forced Nicollet wideouts to turn into defenders on more than one occasion on the deep balls. That type of defense went a long way in turning things around for BLHS, which lost to Nicollet 34-20 in Hector during the third week of the season on Sept. 18.

"Earlier in the year it was a little more lopsided," Vacek said. "We got attacked a lot on our coverage, so that's been something we've been working hard on with our guys since that game. ... It's something we've been working on the last five weeks, just correcting our coverage stuff and it showed tonight."

Jans said despite the tough end to the season, he didn't want his players to hang their heads.

"The biggest thing for those guys that I talked about is one game doesn't define who you are," he said. "It's true in life, it's true in everything that you do."

Jans said he appreciated his seniors especially for sticking it out when things were tough over the years and the kids who joined the team to help as sophomores and juniors and saw things through.

"Obviously not where we want to finish the season, but just below .500, four wins, it's a big improvement over [one] win last year where we thought we were gonna be a lot better than what we were," he said.

The Mustangs play second-seeded New Ulm Cathedral at 3 p.m. Saturday in New Ulm at Johnson Field.

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