Last Friday night the West Grand Mustangs closed out their regular season with a hard fought, 46-34 win at Hayden. The Mustangs were the defending league champions and are champs again with a 9-0 record. 

West Grand received the opening kickoff and had a six play drive ending with a Joe Probst 39-yard touchdown run. Walker Howell added a two point conversion reception to make it 8-0. After a quick three and out the Mustangs began their second possession but a Terryberry fumble at the 32 gave the Hay Tigers a short field. On fourth and 12 they found the end zone to finish a nine play drive to tie the score at eight all.

This set the tone for a lively first half of scoring for each team. The Mustangs seemed to move the ball at will, while the Tigers exploded with a few big plays for their scores. Twice the Mustangs led by two touchdowns only to have the Tigers close the gap. The half ended with West Grand holding a slim 30-24 lead after knocking on the door to score. Two penalties stopped a possible score in the red zone as the half ended.

Hayden started the third quarter with their best drive of the game, a 12 play sequence that ended with the Mustang defense stopping it on the third yard line. The following play resulted in another fumble recovered by the Tigers on the 12. Once again the Mustangs rose up to deny any score.

The offense then began a 10 play drive that carried over to the fourth quarter ending with a Blake Terryberry eight-yard run, pushing the Mustang lead to 38-24.

It took the Tigers less than a minute to answer with a 63 yard touchdown pass to narrow the score at 38-22. 

The Tigers tried an onside kick but freshmen Hugo Gonzalez recovered and the offense then played “Bob Dell Football” — nine straight runs with Terryberry scoring from eight yards out.

Terryberry ended with five rushing touchdown’s mainly due to the hard work put in by the offensive line of Lawson Landrus, Ethan Glave, Conner Stone and Jackson Steinle.

This Sunday at 3 p.m. the sixth-seeded Mustangs host the Sedgwick County Cougars. They arrive at 4-5, but had by far the toughest schedule in eight-man with eight opponents reaching the playoffs, including the #1-2-3-4-7 seeds. Last season, the Cougars ended the season for the Mustangs with a 56-26 win. The teams have a 3-3 record in their playoff history dating back to 1996.