LINCOLN, Neb.—Jared Curry scored on a 4-yard run in overtime, then Ponca stopped Chad Koch on a 2-point try after Hartington Cedar Catholic scored, giving the Indians a 14-13 victory in the Class C2 final on Tuesday.
Ponca (13-0) won its first state championship by beating the Trojans (10-3) for the second time this season.
Cedar Catholic’s Justin Leise threw a 45-yard pass to Cody Klug to break a scoreless tie with 6:28 left in the fourth quarter. Ponca’s Andrew Watchorn hit Nolan Block for a 10-yard, tying TD with 1:25 left.
Jared Curry scored on the second play of overtime for Ponca. Then Leise hit Aaron Steffen to pull the Trojans within a point. But on the 2-point run, a gang of Ponca defenders led by Kash Echtenkamp and Ben Gehring ran Koch out of bounds well short of the goal line.
Ponca coach Joe Kvidera said he wasn’t surprised Cedar Catholic tried to go for the win rather than kicking an extra point to send the game to a second overtime.
“You get to this game, you want to win it,” Kvidera said. “I had faith and trust in our kids that they were going to stop it, and, by gosh, they did.”
Trojans coach Chad Cattau said he made up his mind years ago that if he were in position to win in overtime with a 2-point conversion, he would go for it.
“You know, why not?” he said. “Our kids were playing a little on their heels after Ponca scored, so I thought maybe they had more momentum than we did.
“We ran a play we thought we would have some success with. Ponca made a great play there. You have to give them a lot of credit for stepping up and making that tackle. We tried to win it right there. That’s really what it came down to.”
Curry carried 29 times for 90 yards, and Watchorn completed 4 of 9 passes for 67 yards.
Koch ran for 164 yards on 33 carries, and Leise hit 4 of 11 passes for 101 yards but was intercepted twice.
“We knew it would be a defensive struggle,” Watchorn said. “We kept trying and trying and we finally pulled it out. We made a huge stand when they went for two. It was amazing.”
