CHANUTE — Friday night had everything you could want in an opening week football game. There was great weather. There were two large crowds supporting their schools. There was a lot of smash-mouth, physical running. There were big plays in the passing game. There were two defenses that left everything they had on the field.
“If you were a fan and you didn’t care who won, then you saw a heck of a football game,” Iola coach Doug Kerr said.
The only thing that was missing for Iola fans were three more points on the scoreboard as the Mustangs fell to their rival Blue Comets, 15-12.
As time ticked down in the second quarter, it appeared as though the teams were destined to enter halftime with no score. A bobbled snap changed everything, though.
Chanute sophomore Corbett Kimberlin — running the wildcat formation with quarterback Ty Bowman struggling — took the snap. The slight bobble was all it took for the Mustang defense, which had been control the game against the Comet offense, to react and lose containment.
“We had a kid duck under instead of over and that was the run,” Kerr said.
Kimberlin raced around the right side of his offensive line an took off down the sideline for a 51-yard touchdown run with 42 ticks left before halftime.
The Mustangs got the ball back coming out of the break and answered with their best drive of the game.
The 15-play, 85-yard drive featured 13 punishing Tayton Driskel runs, but the biggest play of the drive came early on after a Mustang penalty gave the team a second-and-13. Senior quarterback Ben Cooper dropped back and took a shot deep to fellow-senior Joey Zimmerman. Zimmerman hauled in the pass for a 45-yard gain and got the Iola offense in business.
Back-to-back 9-yard runs by Driskel kept the drive moving and he eventually capped the drive with a fourth-and-1 plunge from the one yard line.
The extra point by senior kicker Braden Plumlee fell short of the goalposts and Iola pulled within one at 7-6 with 5:09 left in the third quarter.
The quarter ended with that margin.
Iola went back to the formula that worked so well in the third quarter with their opening drive of the fourth.
They pounded the ball with runs by sophomore Tyler Garner, Driskel and Cooper. Then the Mustangs stuck with the pass with Cooper finding junior Ethan Holloway for a 17-yard gain.
They immediately went back to the ground game and Driskel broke off a 16-yard gain.
Driskel capped the drive with a pair of 6- yard runs with the second one finding paydirt.
