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The Columbus Cardinals won the battle of the undefeated teams Friday night defeating the Madisonville Mustangs 49-21 in Columbus.
“Obviously it’s a big win, that’s a good team over there. They’re very athletic and they are going to have a great season,” Cardinals head coach Matt Schobel said. “Fortunately, we were able to force some turnovers that I thought was a big factor in our game.”
The Cardinals started the game off receiving the opening kickoff and their offense put together a nice drive that got them inside the Mustangs 30-yard line. The drive would be cut short however after an interception by Mustangs senior defensive back Lorenzo Johnson Jr. to end the drive.
The Cardinals defense would take the field to try to limit a momentum swing and would force the first of four turnovers. In their first play of the game, the Cardinals defense forced their 10th fumble of the season and recovered it, giving the ball back to their offense.
“Our defense does a great job of making teams drive the field and earn it,” Schobel said. “When teams make mistakes, we capitalize but we’re for sure still going to have things to clean up.”
The fumble recovery would keep the Cardinals in Mustang territory and Cardinals quarterback Adam Schobel was able to find a rhythm. Schobel would find a big target in junior receiver John Schobel for the opening score.
“There’s going to be mistakes made obviously we try to limit them and that is a big part of our preparation each week,” Schobel said. “We would rather force turnovers than give them up but that happens sometimes, and you have to respond, and we did.” The Cardinals offense would be in cruise control for the rest of the half, but the Mustangs still had some fight left. After an interception by senior defensive lineman Devin Woods leading to another first half touchdown.
The Cardinals’ defensive line was having a great game, keeping the Mustangs’ offense in check, but the Mustangs would be able to find Jakeithon Owens in the end zone right before halftime to make the score 21-7 with 1:47 left in the half.
With less than two minutes left before halftime Adam Schobel and the offense put together a great drive, ending with senior receiver Jackson Hancock finding the endzone for the ninth time this season making the score 28-7 before the break.
“They are a really good football team, and they are very well coached,” Mustangs head coach Russell Urbantke said. “One thing we don’t do is turn the ball over on offense, and they forced four turnovers on us, so we got a lot to clean up heading into district, but I liked how we were still resilient late in the game.”
The Mustangs would receive the second-half kickoff, putting junior quarterback Ty Williams and the offense on the field to start the second half. The Mustangs would drive the ball all the way down inside the Cardinals’ 10-yard line, but the Cardinal defense wouldn’t break.
Junior defensive back Elijah Usher would snatch the ball out of the air for the Cardinals and return the ball about 15 yards before being knocked out of bounds. The Cardinal offense continued to roll and after another efficient drive Adam Schobel would hand the ball off to Ty’Vone Whitehead for a touchdown.
“We haven’t had a big game like this in Madisonville in quite some time and I put part of that on me,” Urbantke said.
Johnson Jr. would make another big play in the fourth quarter scoring the Mustangs second touchdown of the game on the opening play of the fourth quarter. The Cardinals would respond with another touchdown from Hancock to make the score 42-14.
The Mustangs would add another touchdown to the board before the game ended, giving them some confidence before the district season.
“The first half was really bad for us but to come out and string some good drives together late I was very proud of our guys,” Urbantke said. “We know we’re capable of doing those things we just had to settle down and play Mustang football.”
The Cardinals will start their district schedule on Friday, Oct. 6, when they host Hallettsville in Columbus.
