For three quarters, North Platte’s football team had control of its game with Penney on Oct. 2. Then everything changed.
The Panthers watched a 16-point lead disappear in the fourth quarter before finding one final answer, marching 58 yards in just 1 minute, 19 seconds for the winning touchdown in a 34-31 thriller in Dearborn. After being held to just one score in the second half, North Platte moved downfield with ease.
Sophomore quarterback Camden Colburn showed his poise to lead the drive, setting up junior Caden Rogers to punch the Panthers ahead with a rush for his third touchdown of the night.
Caden Rogers scored three touchdowns with 118 receiving yards and another 110 rushing yards against Penney.
“It means the whole world; it means everything,” Rogers said. “God was shining on me today, I know that for sure.”
Still, the Panthers needed to stop a Penney offense that had found its groove by scoring on three straight possessions and overturned a multi-score deficit before North Platte answered.
With 32 seconds to make something happen, Penney moved into North Platte territory but ran out of time as the Panthers won back-to-back games for the first time this season.
Rogers had a magical night, officially announcing himself to the rest of the conference with a three-touchdown performance with 228 total yards. It is the type of performance that North Platte head coach Jared Quigley knew he was capable of.
“Go back to the beginning of the year, doing these types of interviews, I said that this young man (Caden Rogers) would be the dark horse of the KCI Conference,” Quigley said. “People don’t know him; he’s a junior who’s now kind of getting his feet wet in the backfield.”
The work for Rogers has been a long time coming, beginning the moment last season concluded. He is happy to see the rewards.
“Just knowing I had to step up, I had to be the guy, I had to do something,” Rogers said. “It’s just really been a dream to play varsity football, rush for all these plays, but I can’t take all the credit because my O-line makes it real easy to run and my quarterback throws really good balls.”
Rogers led North Platte’s talented running corps that combined for four rushing scores against Penney. He ran for 110 yards on 23 carries, while Jonathan McCracken ran for 103 yards and Ben Horsley ran for 32 yards.
“He’s starting to light it up and people are really starting to figure out who he is and what he brings to the table,” Quigley said. “Coming out of the backfield, he brings a lot of explosion, especially following a couple of big backs to lead block for him. So really proud of what he does out of the backfield and his hands out in space.”
North Platte opened the game with a nine-play, 60-yard scoring drive with the running trio each getting touches. Sophomore quarterback Camden Colburn threw a 13-yard pass to Hudson Yarc to get the Panthers into the red zone, with Rogers finishing the drive on a 2-yard rushing touchdown.
The Panthers’ defense got an early stop on fourth-and-short in the red zone when sophomore defensive end Nick Horsley made a big tackle. North Platte gave the ball right back on a fumble, which was turned into points on the last play of the first quarter when Penney quarterback Hudson Creekmore found Damone Newman for a 31-yard touchdown on fourth-and-18.
North Platte looked to answer as Colburn found Lane Richardson for a big reception inside the Penney 15-yard line, but the Hornets recovered a fumble at the end of the play. Richardson bounced back quickly, concluding North Platte’s next drive when Colburn caught Penney off guard by using a wing formation to open up the passing game with a 51-yard touchdown pass to Richardson.
North Platte center James Speight prepares to snap the ball near the red zone against Penney on Oct. 2.
Rogers led another scoring drive for North Platte, getting the ball on five of seven plays during the 81-yard drive, including a 55-yard reception and an 11-yard rushing touchdown. McCracken converted North Platte’s previous two-point conversion, and was followed by Logan Manville’s successful attempt as the Panthers led 22-6 late in the second quarter.
Penney regained some momentum before halftime, scoring on a 73-yard touchdown pass from Creekmore to Aidan Hawkins as North Platte’s halftime lead was cut to 22-12.
With a chance to make it a one-score game, Penney fell prey to Nolan Dehn and North Platte’s defense. The junior lineman recorded back-to-back tackles for loss to force a punt on their opening drive of the second half, and Yarc later had a fourth-down breakup in the end zone to force a turnover on downs.
North Platte’s 16-point lead was restored late in the third quarter on a seven-play, 75-yard drive.
After Rogers added 30 total yards on a reception and carry, McCracken scored with a physical 10-yard touchdown run as he found an opening on the right to make it 28-12.
Penney found a pair of quick scores early in the fourth quarter, starting with a 4-yard quarterback keeper for Creekmore to make it 28-18. A Panther fumble turned into Penney points as Creekmore found Hawkins for a 40-yard score on second-and-25, and a successful point-after for Hawkins cut the Panthers’ lead down to 28-25 with 9:01 left in the game.
After a North Platte turnover on downs, Penney took its first lead of the night on a 61-yard drive. Creekmore capped it with a 1-yard score to take a 31-28 lead with less than two minutes remaining.
There was no panic from the Panthers. All they had to do was execute what they’ve already spent time training for: a two-minute drill.
“This is something we practice every Wednesday and every Thursday,” Quigley said. “That two-minute drill at the end of practice really helped us finish tonight. Really happy with the boys, how they fought and finished the job.”
Logan Manville caught a critical pass in North Platte’s final drive against Penney on Oct. 2.
Gaven Vest returned the kickoff to North Platte’s own 42-yard line, bringing Colburn and the North Platte offense back to the field with two timeouts needing a score. Colburn found Logan Manville twice for a pair of first-down receptions before Richardson brought them to the 24-yard line.
“Get the calls in quick,” Quigley said. “We had some things open up for us this game in terms of some play-action passing that we were coming back to.”
Junior running back Johnny McCracken races near the goal line to set up North Platte’s go-ahead touchdown on Oct. 2 against Penney.
McCracken brought North Platte to the 1-yard line with a 23-yard carry before going out of bounds. Out of a timeout, Rogers received a handoff for the go-ahead score up the middle, making it 34-31 with 32 seconds remaining.
“Once we kind of got them loosened up thinking we were going to pass the ball, we came back and hit them with a trap play to get us down to the goal line,” Quigley said. “At that point, I just knew we had to bring in something to punch it in.”
This time, even with a short kickoff, North Platte’s defense did enough to deny the Hornets. A defensive holding penalty and a run up the middle moved Penney inside North Platte’s 30-yard line, but a penalty pushed them back to the 35-yard line before the game’s final play with 3 seconds left, from which Creekmore could only complete a pass well short of the end zone as time expired.
North Platte returns to .500 on the year with a 3-3 record, 2-2 in conference play. Penney remains winless in conference play and dropped to 2-4 on the season, losing a fourth straight game by single digits.
“This is the way that I know they have been able to play all year,” Quigley said of his team. “I know we still made some mistakes tonight; we missed some blocks up front, turned the ball over, missed some tackles, all that type of stuff. Even going back to the beginning of the year, it was ‘hey, the only team that beats us is us.’”
The Panthers’ final three weeks of the regular season include road matchups against Plattsburg (3-3) on Oct. 9 and Lawson (3-3) on Oct. 23, with the Panthers’ home finale against Mid-Buchanan (6-0) on Oct. 16 sandwiched in between.
“When chips are down, we go back to our theme on the season,” Quigley said, referencing the team’s theme of ‘unbreakable.’ “When adversity comes up, can we remain unbreakable? Those boys are doing a great job of doing it this year.”
North Platte head coach Jared Quigley leads a team prayer following the Panthers’ victory over Penney on Oct. 2.