The Mount Vernon Mustangs competed in a tough battle against the Center Point Urbana Stormin’ Pointers on Friday Oct. 2. at Center Point Urbana High School.

The Mustangs begin the game kicking-off to CPU.  The Mustang defense came ready to play and forced a punt on the opening possession.  The Mustangs drive the ball all the way to the 7 yard line on the opening where the drive stalled and the ball was thrown incomplete on 4th down.  

With a scoreless first quarter the Mustangs take over the ball at the beginning of the second when Mount Vernon’s Sam Moore runs the ball 13 yards for a touchdown! Extra point is no good with the score now being 6-0 Mount Vernon.

For the rest of the first half CPU scores 12 points ending the half with a score of 12-6 Center Point. Tristan Wirfs bulls his way into the snapper and blocks both of Center Point’s extra points.

At halftime Coach Lance Pedersen and the team devise a game plan and adjustments for the second half.  â€šÃ„úThe players decided that we wanted to establish the ground game in the second half.  The offensive line was confident they could control the line of scrimmage.”  

The Mustangs received the opening kick-off and had several nice plays but were forced to punt.  

Mid way through the 3rd quarter the Mustangs were up against a 4th and 2 situation.  With a great stop by the Mustang defense the offense took over.  

Facing 93 yards to take lead the Mustang offense went to work.  A botched snap looked to be disastrous for the Mustang offense.  Drew Adams takes the ball off the ground scrambles and finds Carter Rodman for a huge gain and kept the drive alive.  The offense went into high gear and with 27 seconds left in the third Drew Adams runs the ball 1 yard for a touchdown. Sam Moores kick is good for the extra point. The Mustangs are now up by one point, 13-12.

After some back and forth and several nice plays the Mustangs take over halfway through the 4th quarter.  With 79 yards in front of them it was time for the Mustangs to put together another signature drive.  Continuing to establish the ground game the drove is capped off with a Jack Cochrane run of 18 yards into the endzone for the touchdown.  The score is now 20-12.  

CPU make a last quarter effort to try to tie the game.  Faced with a 4th down and 4 with under two minutes to play Carter Rodman steps in front of a pass into the endzone for the interception and the touchback.

With runs of 8 and 4 yards the Mustangs go into the victory formation to seal the come from behind win over a very good CPU football team.

“CPU has a good football team, I was very proud of our team tonight, they fought back, played together as one cohesive unit, and won a hard fought football game.  To be 5-1 at this point and ranked in the top ten is a great accomplishment for our football team.  I am very proud of the team and coaches, they work extremely hard and deserve this,”  Coach Pedersen said.

Junior Jack Cochrane shares his thoughts on how he thinks the game went; “We played hard for 48 minutes. Some things didn’t go our way, but we kept our heads up, and eventually we started making some plays.”

This Friday matches up No. 3 Anamosa against No. 8 Mount Vernon Mustangs. It is the game of the week in Eastern Iowa and will be a huge game for the District Championship.  â€šÃ„úThis will be a great football game and a great test for our football team.  It will be a standing room only crowd.  Our defense will have to be very disciplined and our offense will have to value each possession. We come in as huge underdogs but our team will work hard this week to try and compete with Anamosa.”  Coach Pedersen said.

Come out and support the Mustangs this Friday for the home game starting at 7:00.

Story by Maggie Rechkemmer