Vogel Nails Game-Winning Field Goal As Mustangs Top LCC

With 14 seconds left in the tied game, Owen Vogel calmly walked up to line. He raised his arms, walked off his steps and was ready to kick his first field goal in a football game.

Then Laurel-Concord-Coleridge called a timeout to ice the junior. But it didn't work. Vogel just repeated his moves and waited for Thomas Cunningham to hold the snap. And it sailed through the uprights perfectly for the 22-yard game winner.

"Deep breaths. Deep breaths," Vogel said. "I just took deep breaths and stayed focused. It did not sake me."

A stalemate for much of the game, neither team scored in the first half as both defenses dominated. The Bears made the first move in the opening possession of the third quarter, scoring with 8:47 left in the third.

But the Mustangs responded and drove the field on the next possession. With 3:24 left in the third, quarterback Parker Krusemark ran straight up the middle to knot the score at 8-all.

The back-and-forth battle resumed with neither defense giving up points until the Mustangs closed the game with the game-winning drive.

"We knew we had to stop their run game. They are such a physical team," Mustang coach Dave Stoddard said. "They came out in the second half and kind of smacked us in the mouth a little bit, and I give our kids so much credit because they responded. We went right down the field, and they didn't have a big drive after that." 

For more on the Mustang win, along with more comments from Vogel and Stoddard and game stats, pick up next week's Stanton Register.