Five Seconds Left: University Stuns Morgantown 20-13 on Trick Play to Win the MoHawk Bowl

If you were anywhere near Morgantown on Friday night, you probably heard the roar. No. 3 University High beat No. 4 Morgantown 20-13 in the MoHawk Bowl, scoring the winning touchdown with just five seconds left on a trick play the Hawks had only put in that week.

The win wraps up a perfect regular season for University, the sixth in program history, and gives the Hawks their first MoHawk Bowl victory since 2022.

Fourth-and-long, no timeouts, one shot

With the score tied 13-13, University faced fourth-and-long at the Morgantown 40-yard line with the clock running and fewer than 20 seconds to play. With no timeout to stop things and set up, the Hawks called a halfback option pass.

Running back Brody Kehler took the handoff, pulled up and threw deep to Hayden George, who hauled it in and took it the rest of the way for a 40-yard touchdown with five seconds showing. Morgantown got one last snap but couldn't answer.

Head coach Eric Snyder gave the credit to offensive coordinator Dustin Lawless for installing the play during practice that week and trusting his players to run it when it mattered most, even though it hadn't gone smoothly in practice.

How it got there

Morgantown controlled the early going. A 29-yard field goal by Aidan Petsko put the Mohigans on the board in the first quarter, and a 3-yard touchdown run by Maddox Twigg pushed the lead to 10-0 midway through the second.

University finally broke through in the final minute of the first half, when quarterback Harrison Helbig threw an 8-yard touchdown pass to Jaedyn Katchur to make it 10-6 at the break.

Petsko added a 30-yard field goal early in the third quarter for a 13-6 Morgantown lead, and the Mohigans were driving to make it a two-score game late in the period. That's when the University defense came up huge, forcing a fumble that Michael McKenzie recovered at the Hawks' 3-yard line.

Helbig tied it 13-13 on a 1-yard touchdown run with about eight minutes to play, setting the stage for the finish nobody in the stands will forget.

What's next

University heads into an off week before the playoffs begin. Morgantown, now 7-2, visits Musselman in its regular-season finale.

Rivalry games in Mon County are always special, but this one goes straight into the memory books. Congratulations to the Hawks on a perfect regular season, and hats off to the Mohigans for a heck of a fight. That's West Virginia high school football at its finest.