It was a hard-fought battle between rivals as the Mustangs and Cardinals went down to the wire, but it was Newton who came away victorious over PCM for the first time in the series history 10-8, as heard live on the KRLS3 Stream Friday night 

After a defensive struggle that resulted in a scoreless first half, Newton struck first mid-way through the third quarter as back-up kicker Caleb Lawson drove in a 42-yard field goal. On the final play of the third quarter, Newton quarterback Zay Arguello scampered in for a six yard touchdown to extend the Cardinal lead to 10-0. After a PCM turnover, a second down snap went high over Arguello’s head and he recovered it in the end zone, but slipped resulting in a safety. The Mustangs took advantage of the momentum as Carson Vandelune hit Matthew Rosonke for a 59-yard touchdown to bring PCM within two. The Mustangs would get stopped short of the goal line on the two-point conversion, but forced a stop to get one more shot to win the game. Kicker Tyler Kuecker was sent onto the field for a 42-yard field goal with just over a minute left in the game, but a slow snap messed up the time of his kick and it sailed wide left. PCM Head Coach Greg Bonnett believed Kuecker gave the Mustangs the best chance to win.

“He’s hit multiple of those (kicks) in practice. The snap was a little bobbled and a little bit high, but we gave it a shot and he gave it a shot. So I thought that was our only option though, I didn’t just want the game to end right there. I wanted to give Kuecker a chance and we did and he got enough and got it off, it was just left.”

The road ahead for PCM doesn’t get much easier as the Mustangs will play host to undefeated Pella Christian next week.

 

PCM’s volleyball squad will travel to BCLUW for their second tournament of the season today.

The first two matches of the BCLUW tournament for the Mustangs will be against North Polk and South Tama. PCM is coming into the tournament with a 4-5 record after dropping to reigning Heart of Iowa Conference Champions Roland-Story Thursday Night. The last tournament PCM was in was last weekend when they went 1-3 at the West Marshall Tournament. In that tournament, the Mustangs lost to BCLUW, Columbus Catholic, and Davis County. Their only win was against Centerville.

The BCLUW tournament begins at 9:00 AM.