Stover's kick in 1994 was one for the ages, even amid controvery

Playoff football provides some of the more memorable occasions in my sports-writing career, and that was the case Oct. 28 in Level 2 when Catholic Memorial got the ball back with 12 seconds left and Eric Fridl kicked a 53-yard field goal as time expired to lift CMH past Wisconsin Lutheran in a thriller, 30-27.

The moment inspired me to collect some of the more recent field-goal moments in area playoff history, but it also calls to mind perhaps the most famous kick in state playoff history, Arrowhead’s Matt Stover kicking a 43-yard field goal as time expired to lead the Warhawks to the 1994 title with a 19-16 win over Muskego.

I know of the kick only in reputation, as I was too young to see the game, but it remains the longest kick in Division 1 title-game history. In full disclosure, its distance takes a back seat to kicks in four of the other six divisions (Bruce Olson of Westby in 1985 and Zach Hintze of St. Mary’s Springs in 2014 both kicked 49-yard field goals in state finals), but it’s the only one of those kicks that truly won the game. Olson’s came in a 3-point win for his team in the second quarter, and Hintze’s gave his team a lead with just more than 4 minutes left, but Springs eventually scored an additional touchdown to win by 9.

The winning kick was significant for a number of reasons. For one thing, Stover (no, not the two-time Super Bowl champion kicker in the NFL, who was drafted in 1990) hadn’t attempted a field goal in the regular season or in the first two rounds of the playoffs. His first attempt was a 25-yarder in Level 3, and he had converted a 27-yarder earlier in the title game at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison. At the time, Arrowhead was just the third program to appear in back-to-back championship games (AHS has since made four straight from 2012-15).

But the craziest thing about the kick were the circumstances that allowed it to happen at all. An official’s inadvertent whistle allowed Stover to try a game-winning kick not once, but twice.

I dug into our Lake Country Reporter archives to find Chuck Delsman’s initial account of the 1994 state championship. Here are a few paragraphs:

Talk about excitement. Talk about suspense.

The WIAA Division 1 state high-school football championship game had it all last Friday night at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison.

And when the final gun sounded, it was the Arrowhead Warhawks that had the prestigious state title.

Thanks to a Division 1 state-record 43-yard field goal by senior Matt Stover as time expired, the Warhawks escaped with the championship by a 19-16 score over the Muskego Warriors. It was the Arrowhead’s second straight crown and 24th consecutive victory over the last two years.

“This is just unbelievable,” an excited coach Tom Taraska said of the Warhawks. “This is a fantasy for me right now. It’s hard to believe. To come up here two years in a row and win the state championship is almost impossible. I just can’t begin to tell you how happy I am for every kid on this football team. This is something all of us will never forget.

What happened in the game’s final 3:08 had everyone, including players, coaches and fans on edge like never before.

However, the final 18 seconds turned out to be something for the history books.

The Warhawks, after leading from the start, were shocked when Muskego scored a touchdown and 2-point conversion to tie the game at 16-16 with 3:08 to play.

Arrowhead took the ensuing kickoff and refused to lay down and wait for overtime. Instead, the Warhawks pounded the ball down the field and appeared to have the game won when they moved the ball to Muskego 4-yard line on Jim Malec’s 12-yard run. At that point, AHS called timeout with 18 seconds to play, their final timeout of the game.

Stover, who had kicked in relative anonymity all season, then was summoned to the field to kick what would be a 21-yard field goal for the possible victory.

Those plans went haywire when Chris Simonsen of Muskego, who was a thorn in Arrowhead’s side all night both offensively and defensively, broke through the center of the AHS line and smothered the kick, knocking it backwards.

With the ball bouncing around near the 25-yard line, AHS senior holder Jim Minessale had enough presence to jump on the loose ball, giving the Warhawks possession again at the 26-yard line.

Muskego’s offense ran onto the field after the blocked kick, even though the Warhawks had recovered the ball. It was still just second down.

But at that point, when Muskego had both the defense and the offense on the field, one official blew his whistle and stopped the clock. That allowed the Warhawks to get set up for Stover’s unbelievable 43-yard field goal, which cleared the uprights by about five yards. Time expired as the ball sailed through the goal posts.

“I’ve been in football a long time and never saw anything like it,” Taraska said. “It looked like we had the game won, and then they came up with a big play. But we got a second chance and made the most of it. This has to be one of the most exciting high-school games ever played up here."

According to other stories in that Nov. 15, 1994 edition of the paper, one official indicated the ball belonged to Muskego, and the other blew the play dead to sort out the confusion.

“I didn’t think I’d get a second chance to kick again,” Stover said in a sidebar focusing on his kick. “I’m just happy that I got another chance at it. We didn’t want to go to overtime.

“I really didn’t have much time to think about that last one. I thought I had a chance to make it. But it all happened pretty fast. It felt great to see the ball split the uprights. The only thing that bothered me a little was that I was having a little trouble in practice with the (UW) turf. The ball was sitting up good, but I was slipping. Kicking on turf is a lot different than kicking on grass.”

He wasn’t talking about the artificial grass-like field turf that Camp Randall has today, which was installed in 2003, but rather the "carpet" turf made famous by the Houston Astrodome. Arrowhead became the first high school in the state of Wisconsin to adopt field turf, doing so in 2004.

“It takes everyone to make a good field goal work. The line did a great job of holding them out and Gary (Niklasch) had a good snap, and Jim had a perfect old. All that stuff made it happen.”

Minessale was the co-hero for recovering the fumble. Arrowhead led after first quarter, 9-0, on short run by Malec and the 27-yarder by Stover. The kick was set up by a play in which an Arrowhead punt got blocked, but the Warhawks’ Bill Blavat picked it up -- but fumbled -- and another Arrowhead player, Jonathan Hughes recovered on the 6-yard line for the first down.

AHS couldn’t move the ball from there, however, and settled for the kick. Muskego’s Jeff Rondeau returned a 60-yard punt for a score that made it 9-6 at half. Larry Kempen’s 3-yard run made it 16-6 for the Warhawks, but when quarterback Fuzzy Marek fumbled the ball out of the end zone, it was 16-8. Muskego then scored a touchdown on a 6-yard run by Chris Simonson in the fourth. The 2-point conversion tied the game at 16.

The whole episode calls to mind another occasion from the 2016 season, when an official stopped a play because he feared Waukesha West running back Peter MacCudden had been injured in the final moments of a regular-season battle in which West had been stuffed on the goal line. MacCudden left the field on his own power, and West scored on the next play as time expired for a thrilling victory.

The outcome was the difference between the losing team making the playoffs or not after it finished 3-4 in Classic 8 play. That opponent: Muskego.

A tip of the cap to Twitter follower Jason Henneberry, who reminded me of the Matt Stover kick Tuesday night after my writeup of recent great field goals.