Leonardo
By (hippy) TED RADICK
- THE COURIER
FINDLAY - Sophomore Devin Mangas seemed pretty calm for a sophomore trying to make a play to guarantee a playoff spot for the Leipsic Vikings. Mangas nailed a 23-yard field goal with 5 seconds left Friday to give Leipsic a 10-7 lead over Liberty-Benton in a Blanchard Valley Conference game at L-B.
The Vikings added a safety on the final play for a 12-7 victory and a spot in the playoffs.
Leipsic, which will find out its Division VI playoff assignment Sunday, finishes the regular season with a 9-1 record, 8-1 in the BVC. Liberty-Benton, still alive for a Division V playoff spot coming into the game, ended its season 7-3, 7-2 BVC.
“We played a good game throughout the game and it came down to this, which was pretty awesome for me,” Mangas said. “I just wanted to make sure for my senior teammates and my brother, Derek, that I would win the game for them.”
Liberty-Benton took possession of the ball after a punt on its 35 with 2:50 remaining in the game and the score tied 7-7. Two plays later, Leipsic defensive back Dylan Niese intercepted L-B quarterback Zac Cramer and returned the ball to the Liberty-Benton 31.
“My eyes lit up,” Niese said. “I just knew I wasn’t going to let it go. I’m just glad I could make the play for my team.”
Liberty-Benton coach Tim Nichols said a mistake on his part led to the interception.
“We felt we had something the play prior,” Nichols said. “I kind of messed up the formation, so we had to take a time out. We came back out and they made an adjustment. It was a good call on their part. We didn’t want to see the look they gave us. Hindsight is 20/20. We thought, well, we’ll see if we can still make the play but they had us outsmarted. That turned it. We thought maybe we’d get an incompletion and punt. That’s a shame. Their kids deserved the win but our kids did, too.”
Leipsic gained two quick first downs and had first-and-goal at the L-B 8. Two runs and an incompletion put the ball on the 5 on fourth down, setting up Mangas’ kick.
“Our kicker’s a sophomore and he gets on my nerves all the time,” Leipsic coach Joe Kirkendall said, laughing. “But I never questioned him when it matters. He’ll do something stupid when we’re up by four touchdowns, not when it matters.”
Nichols called his final timeout before the kick to freeze Mangas, who was having nothing to do with that.
“I think it’s a little bit of an advantage because you can focus in more, take in the atmosphere and just make sure you make it,” Mangas said.
Liberty-Benton had one final chance after receiving the ensuing kickoff with 1 second left. But a quick pass and a series of laterals reminiscent of the famed Stanford/Cal “band on the field” play went backwards and resulted in a safety as time expired.
Kirkendall said getting the ball into field goal position late in the game was key. Leipsic found success running between the tackles in the second half as the Vikings rushed for 109 yards over the final two quarters.
“I loved the physicalness of our offensive line,” he said. “We’re simple. We go straight ahead. One of our linemen, Josh Turnwald, came to me in the third quarter and said ‘Run the ball at them.’ So, I said, that’s what we’ll do. Maybe it’s my fault we didn’t do that more in the first half."
“Their linebackers were playing wide and their defensive tackles were playing a technique, so we keyed off of that,” Leipsic quarterback Liam Nadler said. “We adjusted, and we ran off of it.”
Nadler finished 11 of 26 passing for 74 yards, one touchdown and one interception. Not great numbers, but his second-quarter, 11-yard TD pass to Sonny Hernandez game Leipsic a 7-0 lead.
The Vikings took over on their 40 and drove 60 yards in 13 plays, eating 6:14 off the clock. Nadler hit Hernandez on a swing pass to the right side, and Hernandez broke a tackle before finding the end zone.
Liberty-Benton evened the score by finishing off a long drive. The Eagles went 68 yards in 10 plays late in the second quarter as Brady Vaught punched the ball across on a 3-yard run with 1:16 left before halftime. A 22-yard run by guard Clayton Zaslavsky, who ran a similar trick play for a long gain earlier this season against Cory-Rawson, picked up a key first down on a third-and-11 play.
“We weren’t especially sharp today, but a lot of that had to do with Liberty-Benton,” Kirkendall said. “They did a great job with their game plan, keeping our offense off the field. Our kids made some plays on the defensive side, but (L-B) was good enough defensively that we knew if we’d have one miscue we’d be behind schedule and we’d be done.”