CAPE GIRARDEAU, Mo. --Tanner Dunivan got a running start just before the snap, slipped untouched between the tackle and guard, then put his left hand on the punt.
After trailing by 15 early in the second quarter, the Poplar Bluff senior's punt block set up the go-ahead score late as the Mules rallied to beat Cape Central 29-28 in a SEMO North Conference game Friday night.
"Coach been talking about it all week," Dunivan said. "He takes a long time back there so it was quite easy going through there, just ran through and gave it everything I got and blocked it."
Poplar Bluff coaches were so confident that Dunivan could block it they told the ends to be ready for a scoop-and-score opportunity. The Tigers prevented that from happening, however, it gave the Mules the ball at the Central 15-yard line.
Two snaps later, Tyson Cox hauled in an over-the-shoulder catch in the end zone then held the point-after kick by Victor Rivera for the lead with 6 minutes, 47 seconds remaining.
"It was huge," senior lineman Preston Burroughs said. "Like it changed the whole momentum, it gave us that fire to complete the comeback."
The Tigers (3-2, 1-2 SEMO) never got close to the 50-yard line the rest of the way as Poplar Bluff (4-0, 2-0) set up a showdown with Jackson for the conference title.
"We made the plays when we had to," Mules coach Mark Barousse said.
Bell threw for three touchdowns among his career-high 258 passing yards, and ran for a score while Isaiah Johnson ran for 115 yards. Cox caught 10 passes, two for touchdowns, for 136 yards.
Aaron Harris ran for a pair of first-quarter touchdowns and 80 yards rushing for the Tigers while quarterback Cameron Cox threw for 141 yards and ran for 77 more behind an injury-plagued offensive line that featured three sophomores.
"It's a loss on the record but I feel like it's a win in the book because what it does for our confidence," Central coach Arlen Pixley said. "We came into this game so far behind the eight ball everybody wrote us off for dead."
Poplar Bluff faced its largest deficit of the season, 15 points, but on a third-and-10 Bell threw a quick pass to Tyson Cox near the sideline. The senior avoided his defender and scored a 51-yard touchdown with just under 7 minutes left in the half. The Mules, who stopped a fourth-quarter run for two points to win 36-34 last year, had a two-point run stopped by Central's Chauncey Hughes.
The Mules got the ball back 9 seconds later when Myanza McCain made a leaping catch for his third interception in as many games. Poplar Bluff's ensuing drive, however, stalled at the Central 27-yard line. Bell, who took a shot to his non-throwing hand during the drive, had a pair of passes fall incomplete near the end zone.
"We had trouble picking up their linebackers and everything like that," said Bell, who was sacked twice and had a swollen hand at halftime. "They did some things we weren't expecting and we've just got to overcome it."
Coach Barousse said the Tigers used a different defensive look, moving players around and doing different things on different situations.
"They did a great job changing defensive looks and fronts on us," he added. "They match up well, their athletes in the secondary matched up pretty well with us."
Poplar Bluff came up empty in the red zone three times in the second half after getting a 26-yard field goal by Rivera just before halftime.
With 1:24 left before the break, the Mules forced a punt and took over at their own 34. Bell hit Cox for a 27-yard pass that featured a 15-yard penalty at the end, then twice on the sideline to get out of bounds after short gains. After missing three shots at the end zone, Rivera kicked his second career field goal, cutting Central's lead to 28-22.
"Right before half, that was big," Coach Barousse said. "The momentum and just the mentality, we're only down six."
The Tigers scored twice in the span of 2:23 in the second quarter to build a 28-13 lead.
Matt Nussbaum recovered a Poplar Bluff fumble to set up a 21-yard touchdown pass by Cameron Cox to Austin Parker on the next play.
Donye Taylor recovered the ensuing kickoff which rolled past the first wave of Poplar Bluff blockers but was far enough for the sophomore to reach after a 34-yard sprint.
Five plays later, Joseph Baker scored on a 5-yard reverse with 7:21 left in the half.
The teams traded scores during the first quarter with Poplar Bluff scoring first on a 3-yard run by Bell. Harris answered eight plays later on a 6-yard run but Bell hit Brett Barousse over the middle for a 66-yard touchdown three snaps later. Rivera missed the extra point to the left and the Tigers took a 14-13 lead after Harris scored on a 13-yard run.
"You've got to give credit to their kids, they always play hard against us," Coach Barousse said of the Tigers. "Last year they seemed to find a switch when they played us and they got better and better.
"I don't know what it is but I'm sure glad we came out on the winning edge."
Brett Barousse intercepted a pass at his own goal line to end Central's opening drive of the second half. The Mules then marched 80 yards in 17 plays but came up empty and still trailed by six entering the fourth quarter.
Makarius Bell led Poplar Bluff's defense with 13 tackles while Dunivan added 10. Chris Barker's sack forced the Tigers to punt with five minutes remaining and Poplar Bluff was able to run out the clock with runs by Johnson and Logan Bell.
"We got a very good coaching at half, they told us what to do," Burroughs said. "We kept our hearts in it, we never lost faith and we just put our noses down and got after it."