Bull’s eye: Mustangs beat Uniontown 45-20 at the end of the second quarter

Laurel Highlands and Uniontown scored a ton of goals late in the first half of their Week Zero football game on Friday night.

The Mustangs and Red Raiders combined to score four touchdowns in a 1:56 span. LH scored three of them, took a 31-14 lead into halftime and defeated their city rivals 45-20 at Mustang Field.

“It happens. There were some crazy plays,” said LH coach Rich Kolesar. “Luckily, we executed enough of them to be on the right side at the end of the half and pave the way to the win.”

Laurel Highlands’ Antwan Black Jr. accounted for two of those four points late in the second quarter on a 15-yard run and a 55-yard pass from Noah Lion. He also returned a punt 62 yards to set up the Mustangs’ first touchdown of the first quarter.

Gio Guerriere also scored two touchdowns and Lion scored the first touchdown for LH in a non-league encounter.

Parker Hoff, who recovered two fumbles on defense and ran for 70 yards, contributed a 6-yard touchdown run, and Tanner Bruzda contributed the rest of the Mustangs’ performance with a 22-yard field goal and six extra points.

“I told them their hard work paid off tonight,” Kolesar said of his postgame conversation with his players. “These guys put in a lot of time in the offseason. We had 107 practices in the offseason. We worked hard all summer and now they can reap the rewards of all that with this first win.”

“I’m really happy with our performance. We still have a few things to focus on as coaches and we will tackle them and try to improve next week.”

Uniontown quarterback Cam Dugan and wide receiver Calvin Winfrey III scored two of the Red Raiders’ three touchdowns with touchdown passes of 39 and 19 yards, respectively, and Notorious Grooms scored on a 20-yard jet sweep.

“I thought Cam Dugan did well enough for a young quarterback in his first game,” Uniontown coach Keith Jeffries said. “I thought he had a pretty good handle on things. And Calvin made some really nice catches for us.”

“But we made some glaring mistakes, especially in defense. We just have to get better.”

Uniontown opened the game with a solid first drive, moving the ball on the ground for a pair of first downs before being forced to punt.

Black ran back 62 yards to the Red Raiders’ 28-yard line and Lion ran around the left side and scored a 28-yard touchdown on LH’s first play for a 7-0 lead.

Hoff recovered a Uniontown fumble late in the first quarter, setting up Bruzda’s field goal early in the second quarter to make it 10-0.

Uniontown’s defense scored its first point when Nathan Secrock stepped in front of a Lions pass and intercepted it at the left 39-yard line.

Dugan connected with Winfrey, who deflected the pass and then picked it up on the next play for their first point. David Ranitu, who scored two of three extra points, fired the kick through to cut the score to 10-7 with 9:11 left in the half.

Ranitu then recovered his own onside kick at the Uniontown 43-yard line, but the Mustangs forced a punt and then went on an eight-play, 59-yard touchdown drive capped by Guerriere’s 1-yard run, making it 17-7 with 2:23 left in the quarter.

This triggered a goal rush in the last half of the game.

Two plays later, Hoff recovered his second fumble at Uniontown’s 5-yard line and Black scored from the 15-yard line after a 10-yard holding penalty, giving the hosts a 24-7 lead.

Uniontown’s Jamarie Walker ran the ensuing kickoff 78 yards to the left 20-yard line, and Dugan hit Winfrey again three players later on the left side of the end zone for a 19-yard touchdown, bringing the Red Raiders back to within 10 points (24-14).

“That was a great play by Jamarie for us,” Jeffries said. “He’s a good ball player and a tough guy. We didn’t get the ball to him as much as we wanted because of the pace of the game. He also played well for us at safety tonight.”

Another Uniontown onside kick failed, but Mark Reed recovered it for Laurel Highlands at midfield. Two plays later, Lion threw a pass to Black on a mid-block and the senior broke free, scoring a 55-yard touchdown and pushing the lead to 31-14.

“Antwan is a very special player,” Kolesar said of the NCAA Division I recruit. “He had an excellent training camp. He’s been incredible the last three weeks. I think if he can keep this up all year, he’s going to have a special season.”

Kolesar also praised Lion, who had a game-high 102 yards on 10 carries.

“I was definitely happy with him,” Kolesar said. “He had a really great offseason. Obviously there are still things to improve, but I think he had a really good first night.”

The Red Raiders, bolstered by a pair of 15-yard penalties on left-handers, threatened to score again in the final seconds, but Dugan’s pass was intercepted by Jonah Coleman at the Mustangs’ 13-yard line on the final play of the half.

“We basically slept for about 47 seconds and let them get a couple of quick points at the end of the half,” Jeffries said. “I told the guys at halftime that it was going to be 17-14 and it was going to be a tough battle. We just couldn’t recover from the mistakes we made.”

Touchdown runs of 20 yards by Guerriere and 6 yards by Hoff increased the Mustangs’ lead to 45-14 in the third quarter.

“We’re a very young team and obviously we were a little nervous about a rivalry game in Week Zero, but as the game went on we just got better and better,” Kolesar said.

The Red Raiders used a two-play drive midway through the fourth quarter to cap the game’s scoring, with Grooms scoring his touchdown from the left 22-yard line on the next play after a 28-yard run by Michael Thomas.

Laurel Highlands, riding the lead of backup quarterback Nick Crouch, drove from its own 35-yard line to Uniontown’s 8-yard line late in the game before Kolesar put his team in Victory Formation to run down the rest of the clock.

“Laurel is solid,” Jeffries said. “They’re one of the better teams we’re going to play this year. They’ve got some tough guys and solid players, and obviously Black is very good. It looks like they’ve got a nice group of guys here that work hard together.”

“For some of the kids, it was their first start on the varsity team and at times we didn’t play quite the way we wanted to, but there were some positives,” Jeffries said. “I told the kids to stick with us, we’re going to stick with them and keep fighting and fighting through it and good things can happen to us.”

Laurel Highlands travels to Ambridge next week for another non-league game.

Uniontown, entering its fourth year as an independent team, will have a home game next week that will honor the school’s Hall of Fame class of 2024, but the opponent has not yet been determined, according to Jeffries.

“We’re still waiting to see who we’re playing because Perry (the original opponent) may have to pull out of this game,” Jeffries explained. “But we already have two other games scheduled in case that happens. I’ll know soon enough to finalize an alternative schedule if necessary.”