BUCYRUS — Upper Sandusky quarterback Mason Vent leads the Northern 10 Athletic Conference in passing and Bucyrus got to see the reason why, along with some elusive running, particularly in the first half.

Vent accounted for 296 of the Rams’ 360 total yards of offense — including 240 passing — and Upper Sandusky built an early 14-0 lead. But Vent got upstaged by the Redmen’s Hastin Zier in the second half.

Zier piled up 239 yards of Bucyrus’ 449 and scored three touchdowns to lead the Redmen to a come-from-behind 35-21 win at the Bucyrus Athletic Complex.

“We had a turnover on our first possession. They had great field position and they finished it off,” Bucyrus coach Matt Makeever said. “We had a penalty, ended up punting and they scored again. We’re down, 14-0.”

The Redmen, indeed, threw an interception on their second play from scrimmage, which the Rams returned to the Bucyrus five-yard line. After a seven-yard loss, Vent ran in from 11 yards.

“On offense and even on defense, we were playing pretty good football,” Upper Sandusky coach Russell Hall said. “We were really trying to win every play.”

The Rams’ second score was straight from the Keystone Cops’ book. Gage Frey ran 24 yards and appeared headed for the end zone when he lost the ball inside the five.

Two Redmen couldn’t corral the loose ball and it was batted into and around the end zone before Brayzin McDaniel fell on it for the score.

Bucyrus (5-4, 4-2 N10) finally answered with an eight-play, 60-yard drive capped by an 11-yard pass from Ben Seibert to Jaylen Zehner to make it 14-6.

Zier caught his first scoring pass, 31 yards from Seibert, to get back to within 14-13. Makeever said his team didn’t panic.

“I feel we’re balanced (offensively),” Makeever said. “I never got to panic time. We got a little nervous at the end, but we had some kids step up and we scored a touchdown to give us a little cushion.”

Upper Sandusky squeezed in a touchdown with just four seconds left in the first half to take a 21-13 lead to the locker room at intermission. Brent hit McDaniel with a five-yard pass to turn the trick.

“We fought hard. I feel this is the first game we played hard all four quarters,” Hall said. “We didn’t have a quarter we were off. This was a fantastic game.”

The second half, however, was all Bucyrus, particularly on the scoreboard. The Redmen defense blanked the Rams and the offense — primarily Zier — scored three times to put the game away.

Zier scored on passes of 27 and 58 yards in a 1:03 time span to give his team a 27-21 lead. It stayed that way most of the rest of the half. The Rams had a touchdown pass called back for an ineligible receiver down field and turned it over on downs.

Upper Sandusky (2-7, 1-5) also drove to the Bucyrus 32 before turning it over on an interception late in the fourth quarter. Zier tacked on the insurance score on a 15-yard run with just under two minutes left.

“After we got down 14-0, we outscored them 35-7, five touchdowns to one,” Makeever said. “You make mistakes early and the pressure’s on.”

Vent passed for 240 yards and a touchdown and ran for 56 more to lead the Rams. Diago Cazares caught five balls for 62 yards. McDaniel grabbed six for 48.

Zier had 176 yards receiving and 63 rushing for Bucyrus. Devon Newland had 74 yards rushing on 14 carries. Seibert hit 10 of 16 passes for 199 yards and four touchdowns.

“We’re getting better, we’re definitely getting better,” Hall said. “We’ve got to stop making mental mistakes. I’m proud of the whole team.”

“There’s only one thing we can do now — worry about next week,” Makeever said of Bucyrus’s season-ending showdown with rival Wynford. “That’s what we try to do all year. This was kind of a trap game scenario.”

“We knew coming in that Bucyrus was pretty good,” Hall said. “This is not normal, typical, last-couple-of-years Bucyrus football team. They could easily have a lot more wins, watching them on film.”

Box score

Score by quarters

Upper Sandusky       14          7         0        0   — 21

Bucyrus                        6           7        14        8   — 35

Scoring summary

First quarter

US — Mason Vent 11 run (Fernando Novichoque kick), 8:53.

US — Brayzin McDaniel recovered fumble in end zone (Novichoque kick), 4:07.

Second quarter

B — Jaylen Zehner 11 pass from Ben Seibert (pass failed), 8:01

B — Hastin Zier 31 pass from Seibert (Tyler Bishop kick), 3:18.

US — McDaniel 5 pass from Vent (Novichoque kick), :04.

Third quarter

B — Zier 27 pass from Seibert (Bishop kick), 8:23.

B — Zier 58 pass from Seibert (Bishop kick), 7:20.

Fourth quarter

B — Zier 15 run (Zehner pass from Zier), 1:56.

Individual statistics

Passing

Upper Sandusky: Mason Vent 18-35-2 240.

Bucyrus: Ben Seibert 10-16-2 199; Trevor Ley 1-2-0 1; Hastin Zier 0-1-0 0.

Rushing

Upper Sandusky: Vent 11-56, Gage Frey 9-49, Braden Cano 3-15.

Bucyrus: Devon Newland 14-74, Seibert 10-73, Zier 9-63, Lincoln Mollenkopf 7-31, Ley 4-8.

Receiving

Upper Sandusky: Diago Cazares 5-62, Brayzin McDaniel 6-48, Cano 4-39, Tim Vukovich 3-41.

Bucyrus: Zier 8-176, Jaylen Zehner 1-11, Matt Anderson 1-14, Mollenkopf 1-(-1).

Team statistics

US          B

First downs            17          22

Rushing              23-120    44-249

Passes                18-35-2     11-19-2

Yards passing      240           200

Total yards           360         449

Fumbles-lost        1-0           1-0

Punts-Avg           5-32.2     3-42.3

Penalties              13-105     13-130