By Tom Nader

Publisher and Editor

In a pile of red and white jerseys, everyone’s eyes quickly shifted to the men wearing white and black.

The Field football team had just scored a touchdown, going 80 yards in less than a minute and were attempting a 2-point conversion for the win with 7 seconds remaining.

A tough run up the middle was jammed up, with Field pushing toward the goal line and Mogadore trying not to bend back.

When all the players finally hit the turf, it was difficult to determine exactly where the ball was in relation to the goal line.

When the Mogadore players began racing toward its sidelines celebrating, the final outcome was apparent.

Thus ending a thrilling Week 1 rivalry matchup between the host Falcons and Wildcats, with the latter earning an exciting 27-26 victory that capped a fourth quarter of big play after big play by both teams.

“Wow, what a game,” Mogadore head coach Matt Adorni said. “That is why this game should be played. It was a great game, great atmosphere. We made a lot of mental errors, but we fought until the end. It is just kind of crazy that it can come down to a game of inches.”

The crazy ending had quickly overshadowed Corey Lehner’s heroics.

In two plays, the 5-foot-9, 145-pound junior shifted momentum to the Wildcats in lightning-quick style.

With the score tied 20-20 and Field facing a third-and-long, Lehner raced underneath a Falcons throw toward the far sideline for the interception. Lehner hauled it in near his own 40-yard line and raced up, then across the field before being tackled at the Falcons’ 25.

On the very next play, Lehner took a hand-off on a jet-sweep to the right and instead of bubbling to the outside, he planted his right foot and immediately cut across the grain of traffic and took a straight line directly to the end zone untouched.

In the matter of seconds, Lehner’s back-to-back plays turned a deadlocked game with 2 minutes to play and gave Mogadore a 27-20 lead with 1:14 remaining.

“Cory is a player that we noticed last year had a knack of making two big plays in a row,” Adorni said. “After the interception, we gave him the jet sweep, and he is really good at seeing that seam. He had the hot hand in that moment.”

It was the game-winning score, but the Falcons almost erased it as such.

Receiving the ball with 1:14 to play at their own 20-yard line after a nice kickoff return by freshman Victor Ball, the Falcons had two timeouts, but a big field in front of them.

The big play came from Garit Greene, who pulled in a 37-yard pass from quarterback Braxton Baumberger on a reception near the right hashmark that he was able to get yards after the catch on all the way down to the Cats’ 20.

A screen to Drexal McAmis went for 12 yards to the Mogadore 8 with 13 seconds left in the game.

On the next play, with no timeouts remaining, Baumberger rolled right, seemingly considered to run with the ball when he tucked it for a step, then quickly pulled it back out and threw a strike to Greene, who had crossed to a sit-down route right on the goal line. The pass was thrown into heavy traffic, but Greene squeezed it and back pedaled into the end zone to make the score 27-26.

“I think when Mogadore scored late, everyone in the stadium thought the game was over,” Field head coach Matt Furino said. “I know that we didn’t think it was over and I know there were 51 players on our sideline that didn’t think it was over either. That tells me a lot about my team. This is a special group of guys, and we are going to be alright. Mogadore is a great program, and we gave them everything we had tonight.”

A compassionate Furino said he wished he take the hurt away from his players after the heartbreaking loss.

“I just told them that I loved them,” he said. “I hope they can see, that despite the tough loss, that tonight’s game shows how much further they have come since last year. Last year, we were in a lot of games, but when something bad happened, we would hang our heads and never recover. Tonight was different, there were some moments that we could have had the same thing happen all over again, but we came back every single time.”

After a scoreless first quarter, the Falcons (0-1) grabbed a 6-0 lead on a 2-yard touchdown run by Baumberger. The extra point was blocked by Lehner.

Mogadore took the lead 7-6 on a 9-yard pass from Zeke Cameron to Nick Stephenson, which was the halftime score.

With the opening possession of the second half, a motivated Wildcats team marched down the field with six plays for 65 yards, ending on a 4-yard score by Mason Williams to give the team a 13-6 lead after the point-after was blocked by the Falcons’ defensive line.

McAmis answered back with a 1-yard dive to cut the deficit to 13-12 with 10:49 left in the fourth quarter, then the Falcons regained the lead 20-13 on a run from 5 yards out by Baumberger that was followed by a 2-point conversion run by Baumberger.

Mogadore tied it 20-20 with 5:06 in the fourth on Williams’ second 4-yard touchdown of the game and Austin Constantine’s extra point.

For the game, Williams rushed 25 times for 145 yards. He also had two receptions for 34 yards. Constantine added 47 yards rushing on 11 carries.

Field’s leader on the ground was Baumberger with 123 yards on 26 attempts, while McAmis had 113 yards on 17 carries.

Baumberger added 121 yards through the air, with Greene being his primary target with 6 receptions and 75 yards.