Goodhue falls on last-minute play in football state quarterfinals
For all but the final 7 minutes, 26 seconds of Friday's MSHSL Class 1A quarterfinal at Mayo High School, the Goodhue defense — a formidable unit all season — stood tall in big moments.
Up until that point, Springfield's quickfire offense was stymied time and time again in opposition territory, thrice turning the ball over on downs inside the Goodhue 26-yard line as the Tigers entered the fourth quarter with just a single touchdown on the board, trailing by eight with regulation time dwindling.
That's when things went sideways for the Section 1 champion Wildcats.
Led by sophomore quarterback Parker Kuehn, No. 2 Springfield mounted a late comeback with back-to-back touchdown drives, the last of which found paydirt with just 21 seconds on the clock as Goodhue suffered a heartbreaking 20-14 defeat.
The fourth-ranked Wildcats secured a 14-6 lead at the 7:33 mark of the fourth quarter, bringing them within touching distance of their first trip to the state semifinals since 2015. But big Springfield plays down the stretch snuffed out their quest, capping an otherwise storybook season in anguish.
"That was a tough one," Goodhue coach Tony Poncelet said. "Our defense has done a great job all year. They've had great games all season. I have a lot of confidence in those guys."
The Wildcats limited Springfield entirely in the first half, including a second-quarter stand that left the Tigers begging at the Goodhue 20-yard line with just 10 seconds on the clock.
The Wildcats also secured a crucial turnover early in the fourth quarter, forcing a fumble of Springfield's Gavin Vanderwerf, which led three plays later to the touchdown they hoped would seal it. That's when the Tigers' offense let loose with a level of no-huddle production that Goodhue simply couldn't thwart.
"We've been no-huddle, tempo team for the last six years now, it's meant to wear people down," Springfield coach Adam Meyer said. "We try to play as many kids one way as we can, and we like to rotate as many guys in as we can. And, yeah, that's the goal, wear the other team down and play fast."
It started with a quickfire, 11-play drive midway through the fourth quarter. After junior quarterback Luke Roschen ran in 14-yard TD to make it 14-6 Goodhue, the Tigers (12-0) methodically covered 70 yards over the ensuing 4:26, culminating in a 2-yard touchdown run from Kuehn, who moments later ran in a two-point conversion to make it 14-all.
Then after forcing a Goodhue punt, the Tigers re-took possession at their own 11 with 49 seconds remaining in a contest seemingly destined for overtime. Seemingly. With time ticking, a handful of chunk plays helped push Springfield down the field, as did a pair of pivotal 15-yard penalties against Goodhue — one called for defensive pass interference on a bang-bang play, and another called for a hit on a defenseless receiver on a sideline reception.
Both penalties sent the Goodhue crowd into uproar as the Tigers eventually found themselves at the Wildcats' 32-yard line with 27 seconds to go. That's when Kuehn found junior Isaac Fredin, who broke free in the wake of a stumbling Goodhue defender to haul in a 32-yard, game-winning touchdown.
"We did really good at stopping that big play in the first half," Goodhue senior Chase Danielson said. "We just made a couple mistakes there at the end. Gave up the big play."
"I think both teams had some opportunities to score, and that's a credit to the defenses on both sides of the ball," Meyer said. "We knew how physical they were. We knew they have a lot of speed in the defensive backfield, so we knew was going to be a challenge to score some points. And fortunately, we did at the end of the game there. But they're a really good team. We knew that coming in, and we know there's a small margin of error when you play really good teams like that."
The Wildcats broke a scoreless tie with 5:12 to play in the first half, as Roschen zipped a 21-yard pass up the seam to senior Sean Matthees to put Goodhue on the board. The Tigers later answered with Kuehn, who found freshman Madden Lendt for a 31-yard touchdown to make it 7-6 after a missed PAT.
Roschen finished 9 of 16 from the pocket for 108 yards, also adding 40 rushing yards on six carries. Senior running back Nathan Beck churned out 95 tough yards on 19 carries for the Wildcats, whose season ended sooner than they had hoped.
"We look at the whole journey. We're proud of what we did this year and proud of the hard work our kids put in," Poncelet said. "There's no shame in 11-1; district champ, section champ. You knew coming in that to get to the next level, you have to play nearly a perfect game. And I give Springfield credit. They're a very good football team."
GOOD 0-7-0-7 — 14
SPGFLD 0-0-6-14 — 20
First quarter
No scoring.
Second quarter
— Sean Matthees 21 pass from Luke Roschen (Cristian Monjaraz Mendez kick), 5:12.
Third quarter
— Madden Lendt 31 pass from Parker Kuehn (kick failed), 0:56.
Fourth quarter
— Roschen 14 run (Monjaraz Mendez kick), 7:33.
— Kuehn 2 run (Kuehn run), 3:10.
— Isaac Fredin 32 pass from Kuehn (kick failed), 0:21.
Individual statistics
— Nathan Beck 19-95, Roschen 6-40, Jack Carlson 9-18, Matthees 1-4, Hayden Holm 1-2, Team 1-(minus 2); — Gavin Venderwerf 29-122, Kuehn 9-41, Adiel Trevino 2-5, Aiden Moriarty 1-3.
— Roschen 9-16-0-108, Matthees 1-1-0-6; — Kuehn 13-21-0-170.
