Halfway through the third quarter, Williamsburg led 35-0 and had a running clock at its back. With one minute left in the game, Prairie City-Monroe was driving down the field in a one-score game with all of the momentum at its back.
The Raiders stood firm, stopping PCM on a fourth-down run to survive a momentous comeback effort by the Mustangs in a 35-28 thriller.
To put it in the words of receiver and defensive back Gibson Scott: “Sometimes, you gotta win ugly.”
The first half was all Raiders thanks to career games out of Scott and junior quarterback Cash Brown.
Brown, a Mid-Prairie transfer now in his second year leading the Raider offense, delivered a career-high 4 passing touchdowns, two of which went to Scott, a Hillcrest student, also a career high.
“We know what kind of a quarterback Cash is,” Williamsburg head coach Austin Blythe said. “It’s good to see him finally settle in a little bit… [Gibson] is another guy who we know what he’s capable of, and it’s good to see that stuff happen for him.”
Brown led a meticulous drive to open the game, scrambling to his left and finding Brady Rieder for an eight-yard touchdown pass.
Kale Bailey drew a pass interference flag on a go-ball down the far sideline on Williamsburg’s next drive, setting Scott up for his first touchdown, as Scott took a crossing route 33 yards to the house.
“We were just on the same page,” Scott said of his connection with Brown throughout the game. “His confidence was boosted, and it was great play calling by our coach.”
Brown looked Bailey’s way again on the Raiders’ third drive. Brown saw Bailey’s advantageous matchup at the line of scrimmage and trusted his top target to win the matchup, airing the ball out into the seam and hitting Bailey in stride for a 77-yard, one-play touchdown.
“I told coach that it was going to be there, I saw the corner biting,” Brown said, describing the leadup to the play. “I told Austin we should run that, so we did on the first play of the drive, and Kale was out there, I just had to give it to him, and he made a great catch, too.”
Bailey’s score made it 21-0, and as the first half crept toward its conclusion, the Williamsburg defense hadn’t been challenged.
That changed as the second quarter came to a close, when, following a fumble by Brown, PCM drove the ball inside the Raider five yard line.
Williamsburg defense bore down, delivering back-to-back tackles for loss on first and second down and finding pass breakups on third and fourth to deny the Mustangs at the goal line. The stop maintained Williamsburg’s three-score lead heading into the locker room and proved decisive.
“We just had to communicate and stick to the basics,” Scott said of the stop at the end of the half. “Do your job. Do your job. Do your job. That’s all it takes.”
Williamsburg kept its foot on the gas out of halftime, as Scott put his defender on skates for an easy touchdown pass to open the second half. A fumble on the ensuing kickoff allowed Williamsburg running back Dallin Sullivan to punch in his lone touchdown of the night to give the Raiders a 35-0 lead and momentarily turn on the running clock.
From that moment on, the game belonged to PCM running back Bodhi Bonnett.
Bonnet dominated the Raiders at the point of attack, breaking tackle after tackle on his way to a three-touchdown performance in the second half that left the Raiders on their heels. The final touchdown came after Scott, who had dominated top PCM wide receiver Landon Siedlecki all night, left with an injury. As soon as Scott was out of the game, the Mustangs attacked Siedlecki’s defender with a long pass that put the ball inside the 5.
“He really challenged me a lot,” Scott said of Siedlecki. “I like going against these receivers, it pushes me.”
The Mustangs’ outburst ultimately cut Williamsburg’s lead to seven with just under two minutes and three PCM timeouts remaining.
A first down could have won the game for Williamsburg, but Sullivan got stuffed three times to force a punt. The Raider crowd was stunned. PCM was going to have an opportunity to tie the game.
The Mustangs special teams unit did more than just give them an opportunity.
PCM got into the backfield on the punt and blocked it, giving the Mustangs the ball on the Raider 35.
PCM ran the ball three times to generate a first down and put the ball just outside the red zone before spiking it to stop the clock. The Mustangs had seemed unstoppable the entire second half. Williamsburg, though, found the morale to produce one last stop.
Mustang quarterback Roston McCarty avoided a sack by throwing the ball into the dirt 18 yards behind the line of scrimmage, drawing an intentional grounding flag but stopping the clock to keep the game alive. McCarty scrambled for 24 yards on 3rd and 28, and with the clock ticking under ten seconds and the game on the line, the Mustangs handed it to the ever-reliable Bonnett, who the Raiders finally stopped in the biggest moment of the game. Four seconds left. Stuffed up the middle. Ball game.
“It felt good, but it reminded us we have some work to do,” Scott said.
The win prevented a scene of deja vu for the Raiders, who lost to PCM on a game winning field goal last fall.
Williamsburg will return to action on Friday when the Raiders travel to Cedar Rapids to take on the Xavier Saints.
“We just need to execute at a high level for the entire game, and then we’ll see what happens,” Blythe said of what his team needs to do to be successful next week and beyond. “The first, call it, 30 minutes of this game, we were executing at a very high level, but somewhere along the way we lost it. We have to make sure that the guys stay locked in for the entire game.”
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