Garden Plain wins back-and-forth battle with Chaparral (+video)
The lore of Nate Pauly is growing every Friday night.
Classmates at Garden Plain have seen the diminutive playmaker do extraordinary things with the football in his hands for years. Now the rest of the Central Plains League is catching up.
Pauly tallied 171 total yards and two touchdowns, with seven of his eight touches going for a first down or touchdown in Garden Plain’s 35-30 come-from-behind victory over Chaparral on Friday.
Pauly’s season totals of 290 rushing yards and 198 receiving yards through five games seems modest, until you realize Pauly has done it on 24 touches. That’s over 20 yards every time he touches the ball.
“The boy know how to run a ball,” Garden Plain junior Marty Landwehr said. “He’s been doing it since sixth grade.”
In a battle between undefeated teams for the CPL lead, Pauly was the difference-maker in a game that had four lead changes in the fourth quarter.
When a drive in the third quarter appeared lost due to a penalty, Pauly sprinted past Chaparral’s secondary on third and 17 and Alex Becker delivered a strike for a 62-yard touchdown.
After Chaparral answered back with a touchdown of its own, Pauly took a sweep around end and turned a seemingly modest gain into a 32-yard touchdown and 27-22 lead in the fourth quarter.
“This is my first year coaching Nate and every single game I see something new,” Garden Plain coach Ken Dusenbury said. “He gets to another level and you think it’s all bottled up, and there he is running down the sideline. Every game we’ve seen something new from him.”
Chaparral felt it had done enough for the victory when it responded with a 10-play touchdown drive capped by an 18-yard Jacob Jenkins rumble for a touchdown, his fourth of the game, for a 30-27 lead with 5:22 remaining.
At that point, Chaparral’s offense had rolled up more than 400 yards and 17 first downs.
“Our kids played a whale of a game,” Chaparral coach Justin Burke said. “Our drive down there was good, but then they turned around and did the same thing back to us. We just couldn’t stop Pauly on the buck sweep. He was better than us tonight.”
On what would become the game-winning drive, Pauly’s 21-yard gain on the sweep gave Garden Plain the ball on the Chaparral 13-yard line with 1:37 remaining. Becker would convert a fourth down and score a play later for the game-winning TD with 36 seconds left.
“It was my front blockers, I couldn’t have done it without them,” Pauly said. “They got their schemes down and give me those little holes, where I can break through them.”
Dusenbury learned after the game that Pauly had reaggravated a groin injury early Friday.
“He’s a special player, he really is,” Dusenbury said. “Just an absolute gamer.”
Chaparral | 0 | 14 | 0 | 16 | — | 30 |
Garden Plain | 13 | 0 | 6 | 16 | — | 35 |
GP—Landwehr 12 run (Dockers kick)
GP—Dockers 61 pass from A. Becker (kick failed)
C—Jenkins 2 run (Escobar kick)
C—Jenkins 4 pass from Patterson (Escobar kick)
GP—Pauly 62 pass from A. Becker (pass failed)
C—Jenkins 1 run (An. Clark run)
GP—Pauly 32 run (Wright run)
C—Jenkins 18 run (An. Clark run)
GP—A. Becker 1 run (Bergkamp pass from A. Becker)
Individual statistics
Rushing—Chaparral, Jenkins 14-94, Ad. Clark 14-57, An. Clark 10-46, Patterson 4-39, Overton 5-10, Valderas 3-5; Garden Plain, Pauly 6-97, Landwehr 9-70, Stuhlsatz 12-43, Ellis 5-28, Wright 4-20, A. Becker 5-(-5).
Passing—Chaparral, An. Clark 8-16-133-2, Patterson 2-4-27-1; Garden Plain, A. Becker 4-13-143-1.
Receiving—Chaparral, Patterson 2-93, Valderas 2-37, Ad. Clark 2-16, Jenkins 2-12, Eslinger 1-6, Overton 1-(-4); Garden Plain, Pauly 2-74, Dockers 1-61, Bergkamp 1-8.
This story was originally published October 2, 2015 at 11:17 PM with the headline "Garden Plain wins back-and-forth battle with Chaparral (+video)."