UPDATED  Jackie Gleason had a saying on his TV show back in the 50’s/60s which applies here.  He often said, “What A Revolting Development.”  A more current day expression which was heard throughout the MAC Friday night is “I didn’t see this coming.”  No we didn’t.  Despite my honest assessment of Dalton Tartar and the Bears previewed here for the last few days, that all changed when word spread that Tartar had not recovered from an injury sustained in the Holy Cross game two weeks ago, and added to that major loss was the loss of first string quarterback, Greg Benedict.  The loss of these two accounted for 90% of the Bears offense the past two games.

Thinking that it would be the Mustangs who would dominate, it was a bit of a letdown, knowing that we were not going to take the boys from Brooksville’s best shot, and would have two somewhat non-productive back-to-back contests.

And then the game started.  After moving the ball effectively from our own 20 to the Polar Bears 35, Andrew Kirk stepped into a passing lane and ran it into the endzone for a Pick 6.  The PAT attempt was up and good, and that quickly we trailed 7-0, which was the way the first quarter ended.  Trailing 7-0 was certainly no cause for concern. We would surely catchup and run past the Bears and emerge 3 and 1.  But a funny thing happened on the way to the comeback.  Bracken scored again at the 8:51 mark of the second stanza and the 3:46 point before the half.  Spaulding was then picked off for the second time in the half and the PAT was good making it 27-0, and they weren’t done yet.  Max Runge had a Field Goal attempt blocked, which resulted in a three-quarter length of the field run-back and it was now 34-0, a single point away from a running clock as the Mustangs headed to the locker room in an effort to right the ship and orchestrate the greatest comeback in the history of Brossart Football.   I actually thought that this might be a remote possibility.  Foolish me!

That dream was shattered on the Bear’s first possession of the second half when Andrew Kirk broke free on an 82 yard run, making it 41-0, starting the running clock and had the Mustang fans scratching our collective heads.  

We learned a few things about how Dalton Tartar is able to rack up such monumental numbers on an annual basis, and why the Bears were effective tonight, against what we consider to be a “Stingy” defense.  That reason wears #62 for the Bears – 6-4 Senior Jackson Whiton is a superior run-blocker, and the Bears thrived on this night by running behind him.  He is my Game MVP. 

Brossart did muster 13 points in the fourth quarter long after this win was in the bag and on its way home to Brooksville.  We had some big plays.  Bentley McKinzie enlivened the McKinzie fan club with a 30 yard run to the 1-yard line which then resulted in a Spaulding connection to Bentley, making it 41-6.  Three minutes later Matthew Goering recovered a Bears fumble down near the Brossart goal-line, and when  Landon Spaulding carried the piggy one yard on a keeper into paydirt, and Runge  hit the PAT the final score became 41-13.  On the night the Mustangs were Minus 10 yards on the ground, but accumulated 216 via air.  For their efforts on our behalf Isaac Amin is named our Offensive Player of the game, while Landon Ruth, who has been sterling on defense all season to date is tabbed the Defensive Player of the Game.

Things will not get any easier when Nicholas County, now 3-0 with a 54-7 win over Lewis County, comes to call next Friday night here at the MAC.  This will be a 7:30pm contest.  

NOTE:  The Nicholas County win over Lewis County took place last Friday night.  This week they accepted a 1-0 forfeit victory from Berea to improve to 4-0, basically awarding them a bye week.

NOTE  2:  When the stats come out sometimes we wonder if we were watching the same game.  The Bracken County stats show Matthew Riegler as our place kicker, which is not out of the realm of possibility, but our primary kicker, Max Runge was there so I will assume that this is a typo, and Runge was responsible for all of the place-kicking.  Matthew Goering did recover the fumble that we originally credited to Landon Ruth.