Carlisle had converted what looked like a potential game-sealing first down on a completed pass inside the red zone. But the ball was stripped away, and the Wildcats marched 18 plays and 94 yards to score the go-ahead touchdown in the final minutes.
“I didn’t know when it was going to end. Just a roller coaster of emotions,” Carlisle coach Josh Koogle said. “Just when we get rolling, we think we’ve got them — good play down there, got a guy wide open — but they just made more plays than we did at the end of the day.”
Carlisle trailed 20–7 early in the second quarter, clawed all the way back and eventually led by three in the final minutes. The Indians were a handful of plays from a trip to the regional final — a moment scarcely imaginable just a few years ago.
Carlisle (10-3) rallied with the same resiliency that defined its season. Quarterback Kolby Morgerson, who was injured briefly before returning, helped engineer multiple scoring drives.
But mistakes early buried the Indians in a hole.
“We had a few offensive drives where we get behind the sticks, shooting ourselves in the foot,” Koogle said. “Second-and-3, bad snap — now we’re behind the chains. We take a sack. Later in the half we throw a pick. Offensively, the idea was we had to get out of our own way.”
The second half was a different story.
“Defensively, we made a few adjustments, and they came out and played harder in the second half than we did in the first,” Koogle said.
Carlisle flipped a 20–7 deficit into a 36–33 lead and had a chance to stretch it to two scores late. But North Union’s strip-fumble, improbable march down the field and a final defensive stand ended the comeback.
Senior wide receiver Drew Conger, now Carlisle’s all-time leader in receiving yards, said the season was bigger than wins.
“This has been special,” Conger said. “Our team had high expectations, but nobody thought we could do it. And we showed everybody what it means to be an Indian. I’m proud of our guys — we fought all game.”
Conger praised Morgerson, a junior who recently became Carlisle’s single-season passing leader.
“Kolby’s been our leader all season,” Conger said. “When he went down, I knew he was going to fight and come back in. Resiliency has been the big thing with this team all season. Even last week at Graham — we just continue to fight. We never thought we had a chance to lose.”
Conger said the team first realized its potential midway through the regular season.
“After Week 7, Week 8, we knew we were going to make a run,” Conger said. “It’s hard to put into words how much this means.”
“My heart hurts for my seniors and the rest of the boys,” Koogle added. “You could’ve seen this place a couple years ago — there weren’t any fans on the field. There was no hugging, there were no tears. And that just goes to show what this meant to people.”
The Carlisle crowd — which packed the stadium, lined the fences and spilled into the walkways — turned the night into something bigger than football.
“I’d like to see a picture down the road,” Koogle said. “But I felt it — the entire community cheering for a bunch of kids who decided to do something hard. They didn’t play Madden. They did the real thing. And to make the jump they made — that’s leadership, that’s buy-in, that’s work.”
Carlisle graduates a sizable senior group — 13 or 14 depending on how you count it, Koogle noted — a class he says transformed the culture.
“That’s a great senior group,” said Koogle, who finished his second season at the Carlisle helm. “And now we’ve set the standard. Now you’ve got to meet it.”
Carlisle had not been considered a regional contender when the season began. But Koogle remembered a conversation with his wife before Week 1 — the kind a coach only shares at home.
“She told me, ‘You said if we do what we should, we can win seven or eight games and win a couple playoff games,’” Koogle said. “That was the big goal. And I saw it going this way. I didn’t know how we were going to get there, but it was one hell of a ride.”
In the end, the Indians didn’t lose the game so much as they were beaten by a team that matched — and barely exceeded — their fight.
“That’s a very good football team over there,” Koogle said. “Hats off to those guys.”
Then he looked back at the players still in full uniform, hugging family members, thanking fans, soaking in the final moments of an unforgettable fall.
“The community, the coaches, the admin — everybody here — they gave these kids something special,” Koogle said. “And the kids repaid it by selling out, giving it all they had, not leaving anything out there. I’m proud of them.”
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