Tompkins' late FG caps Southwest rally

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BY KEN HAMBLETON / Lincoln Journal Star

Austin Tompkins was floating higher than his game-winning 49-yard field goal even though he was crushed under a dogpile of Lincoln Southwest teammates.

The sophomore kicked the game winner as time ran out to give Southwest a stunning 34-31 victory against Kearney on Friday before 3,100 fans at Seacrest Field.

“It’s unbelievable. It doesn’t seem real,” Tompkins said after the Silver Hawks rallied from a 31-14 halftime deficit.

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“Oh, it’s real. He’s got the leg. We knew he could do it,” said his brother Ethan Tompkins, who caught an 11-yard pass to move the ball to the Kearney 32-yard line with five seconds left.

“Ethan told me one word, ‘Focus,’ when I went on the field,” said Austin Tompkins, who also kicked a 38-yard field goal in the fourth quarter to tie the game with 3:04 remaining.

“Austin grew up wanting to be a football player, a kicker and he’s got all the ability in the world,” said Southwest coach Mark King. “He capped off the second half,  where we lived up to the halftime talk about perseverance.

“That was an idea I stole from Tom Osborne about making up a theme for the week. We talked perseverance all week long. At halftime, when we were down by two and a half scores, we talked about keeping in the game and getting back into it.”

Southwest (3-2) simply denied Kearney the ball most of the second half. The Bearcats (3-2), who rolled up 187 yards on 25 plays in the first half, were restricted to 14 plays in the second half for a total of 69 yards.

Southwest, meanwhile, ran 34 plays for 291 yards in the second half. Quarterback Rylan Cotton ran for two touchdowns in the third quarter and finished with 101 yards rushing, and teammate Kyle Daniels amassed 211 yards on the ground.

Cotton, who threw a pair of touchdown passes in the first half, hit 6 of 8 attempts in the second half for 83 yards, including a 24-yard completion to Lynn King to set up the game-tying field goal. Cotton’s sideline pass to Ethan Tompkins put Southwest in Austin Tompkins’ field-goal range.

But it was Cotton’s 27-yard run with 20 seconds left that was the difference in the game.

“Before Rylan makes that run, we were planning what to do in overtime because we were on our 30-yard line and there was only 20 seconds to go,” King said.

Cotton’s final run finished off his last of five runs for 88 yards after halftime.

The Southwest defense also played a major role in the incredible comeback.

Kearney, which started all but one of its scoring drives inside Southwest territory, was forced to punt twice before a final drive that stalled on fourth-and-less-than-2 inches at the Southwest 30 with 35 seconds left in the game.

“Two inches would have made a big difference, because even into the wind, we thought we had the kicker to win this game,” said Kearney coach Brandon Cool. “Southwest was making sure that wasn’t going to happen. Then, they got the big run from their quarterback and a great kick from a sophomore.

“We just never got the ball in the second half and you have to credit our fumbles and their defense,” he said. “We played a great game and Southwest played just that much better.”

Reach Ken Hambleton at 473-7313 or khambleton@journalstar.com.