Vaughn stirs LFO to 54-31 comeback victory

Zach Vaughn had gone through too much to let his team go down without a fight.

The Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe senior quarterback led a comeback from 10 points down as the host Warriors pulled out a 54-31 win over Murray County with a strong second half Friday night at Tommy Cash Stadium.

LFO (5-3, 3-0 6-AAA North) will play for the subregion championship next week against North Murray, and a win would put the Warriors in the region championship game to close the regular season.

“This is huge, especially going into our next game,” said Vaughn, who rushed for 186 yards, passed for 248 and had a hand in five touchdowns as the Warriors put up 594 total yards.

“The momentum is huge and we just have to keep it up. We haven’t been in the playoffs in forever, and this just builds the momentum to get there. Coach said this would be the team that turned things around, and we want to prove him right.”

Murray County (3-6, 1-3) scored 21 straight points in the first half after LFO had taken a 14-3 lead, with quarterback John Reed going 4-for-4 for 129 yards and two scores and Tucker Gregg adding a 27-yard touchdown run.

LFO scored late in the first half on Vaughn’s 15-yard keeper, but the Indians used a good kickoff return and a couple of Gregg runs to get to the 16. However, Reed fumbled with 30 seconds left to end the drive.

The LFO defense, shredded for 262 yards in the first half, forced a punt to start the third quarter. The offense responded with a 65-yard drive, with Nathan Williams scoring from 3 yards out. Murray answered right back on a 53-yard pass from Reed to Preston Vanmeter and took a 31-28 lead.

That was the the last time the visitors led. Murray tried an onside kick after its score, but Jacob Morgan recovered at midfield. Nine plays later, which included a third-down pass-interference call, Vaughn scored from 4 yards out to set up a 34-31 lead.

After the Indians went threeand-out, Vaughn went deep on first down, hitting Ruddy Ware for a 64-yard touchdown. Early in the fourth, after a turnover on downs, Vaughn scored on a 47-yard run to push the lead to 14.

The Warriors iced the game with a 10-yard touchdown run by Williams, his third of the game to go with 165 yards.

“I’m very proud of our guys,” LFO coach Bo Campbell said. “That’s a sign of a great football team when you are struggling on one side of the ball and the other side picks you up. We struggled defensively in the first half, and Murray County we knew offensively is a great football team with their back and their quarterback, but we persevered.

“To go from 0-10 to 1-9 and to have this kind of season is amazing.”