Things were going quite well for Iola Friday evening. The Mustangs had repelled a pair of Baldwin drives deep in Iola territory, and took advantage of other Bulldog miscues to build a 17-point lead with just minutes remaining of their season-opener.
But something funny happened on the way to the victory column.
Murphy’s Law — the adage that if something could go wrong, it would — reared its head for the last 2½ minutes.
Nevertheless, Iola made just enough plays at the end to secure a 23-20 victory.
“It was a crazy ending,” Mustang head coach David Daugharthy said. “I didn’t see that coming. It felt like we wanted to win it for 3½ (quarters), but then it felt like we didn’t really want to any more. ”
Iola’s Easton Weseloh broke containment for a 49-yard touchdown run with under 4 minutes remaining, putting Iola on top 23-6, before a calamitous sequence almost undid everything.
After Weseloh’s score, Baldwin promptly marched down the field in four plays, capped by Bryis Alford’s 24-yard touchdown pass to Ryder Nigh with 2:29 remaining.
Iola recovered the onside kick attempt, but a fumble on the first play from scrimmage was scooped up by Baldwin defender Jackson Rood, who raced untouched for 40 yards to the end zone.
Suddenly, Iola’s lead had been winnowed to three precious points with 2:18 still on the clock.
What’s more, Baldwin still had two timeouts and plenty of opportunities to stop the clock and get the ball back.
But Iola recovered the subsequent onside kick. The Mustangs’ Tre Wilson gained 7 and 6 yards on back-to-back runs to record the critical first down that allowed Iola to run out the clock.
On top of the late turnover, Iola’s runners had an inexplicable habit of running out of bounds, doing so at least three times in the fourth quarter, which in turn stopped the clock and prevented Baldwin from having to use its timeouts earlier.
“We’ve got some end-game management issues, both in play-calling and in awareness, that we’ll get fixed,” Daugharthy said.
The ending capped a memorable night for Wilson, Iola’s dynamic junior who scored Iola’s first two touchdowns.
His first score, a 2-yard reception from Jakolby Hill midway through the first quarter, was set up by Wilson’s own 52-yard completion to Nick Bauer on a halfback pass.
