Show of Resilience: Mansfield rallies from 35 point deficit to stun Minden

by William Weathers // GeauxPreps.com Contributor

In a career with 33 years in coaching, Darrell Barbay had never experienced anything quite like it.

Mansfield opened the 2025 season on the road Friday against Minden, trailing the Crimson Tide 35-0 after 18 minutes of play.

“When you play hard, and you keep playing hard, you have a chance to win,” Barbay said of a past conversation with his father, Curtis, a 317-game winner in 36 seasons at Newton (Texas) and member of the Texas High School Hall of Fame. “If you don’t play hard, you’re never going to have a chance to win.”

Mansfield never let its foot off the gas pedal. The Wolverines scored twice before halftime and trailed 35-14 and never looked back.

The Wolverines reeled off 30 unanswered points, allowed a field goal, before coming all the way back on a 99-yard kickoff return from Jaydan Hamilton and rushing touchdown from Terrell Pegues in the final two minutes for a stunning 46-38 victory. 

“That was probably the wildest game I’ve been a part of,” Barbay, who coached for more than 20 years at three schools in Texas before taking over Mansfield four years ago.

There were plenty of heroes to go around for Mansfield, a team that went 7-5 and lost in the second round of the Division III non-select playoffs to Oak Grove last season.

Pegues carried 30 times for 186 yards and a touchdown. He also caught a 69-yard TD pass.

“He’s one of our leaders,” Barbay said. “He never pointed the finger, just kept grinding. Our quarterback (Jaterrious Howard) never got flustered. They kept grinding.”

Howard completed 4 of 10 passes with three of them going for scores – two to tight end Tramajah Carroll. He added 39 yards rushing on 13 attempts for a team that gained 272 yards on the ground.

Washington compiled 220 all-purpose yards with five kickoff returns for 175 yards. He added 45 yards and a TD on the ground.

“I was telling my brother (Merryville head coach Bryan Barbay) he wasn’t going to believe how we did it,” Barbay said. “He said that he had been on the other side of it, and I had too. I’ve been up 28 points and had somebody come back. It was about time we had something good happen to us.”

Part of Minden’s early onslaught included a pair of defensive touchdowns. The Crimson Tide picked up a pair of fumbles and returned them for scores, rocking Mansfield back on its heels in the initial stages of the season opener for both teams.

“It was 35 points, and it could have turned into 70 just like that,” Barbay said. “I probably had a speech ready for our kids about regrouping. We had a lot of bad things happen in the first half, but we moved the ball, and the kids noticed they (Minden) were getting tired. We never punted in the first half. They scooped and scored two fumbles. Anything that could go wrong went wrong.

“Our kids just kept playing and didn’t quit,” Barbay said. “Once a couple of things happened, they just got excited. We were down three touchdowns, and they were still excited because we were coming back. It was just a good win for the kids.”

Mansfield stopped Minden’s early avalanche with a TD pass from Howard to Carroll, forced a turnover, and added another score in the final minute of the half.

“I just told the kids to keep playing,” Barbay said at halftime. “I told them we were about to get the kickoff, and if we could score and get a stop, they were getting tired. Our kids kept telling me that they were tired.”

To Barbay’s point, during Mansfield’s initial drive of the third quarter, he said four players for Minden suffered cramps.

“We just seemed like we were in really good shape because we were coming back,” he said. “We just kept playing. We played the next play. Our kids just played really hard.”

Mansfield made it 35-22 and recovered a fumble on Minden’s following drive that had reached the Wolverines’ 10.

That resulted in another touchdown, reducing Minden’s lead to 35-30, when another drive for the Tide was halted and resulted in a field goal.

“That’s when the fireworks happened,” Barbay said.

Hamilton, a sophomore, electrified the crowd and further stimulated his team with his 99-yard kickoff return, and Pegues’ two-point conversion tied the game at 38-all.

Mansfield’s ‘pooch’ kickoff paid dividends when the Wolverines recovered a loose ball. 

“Maybe it was divine intervention, I don’t know,” Barbay said. “Sometimes it’s just meant to be.”

Pegues’ final carry of the game for a touchdown in the final two minutes of play brought Mansfield all the way back for its first lead of the game. 

“When Pegues scored, in my mind, I didn’t think they could stop us,” Barbay said. “We just needed to get the ball. We were playing good enough defense, and once we stopped them after we scored, I knew we would get a stop. I thought we could at least get to the overtime.”

Mansfield didn’t need it, although Minden created one last scare.

The Tide reached the red zone, getting as close as the 15, when the Wolverines recorded a sack to set into motion some tenuous moments that led them to celebrate and reflect on what they had just accomplished. 

“It was a wild one,” Barbay said. “We’ve had more athletic teams since I’ve been here. We have some really good kids. Some good character kids. We had a lot of kids step up. We had a lot of kids play well on defense.

“I’ve been on the other end of it where it’s gotten away before,” Barbay said. “When you get momentum, and you’re playing pretty good and people start getting nervous, it just kind of happens.”

The post-game celebration and hour-long trip back home were enjoyable for Mansfield, which travels to Green Oaks and Northwood in the next two weeks. The Wolverines’ first home game is on Sept. 26 against Lake Charles College Prep.

“I told the kids afterward it was a huge win,” Barbay said. “We could have made a comeback and easily lost, but when you don’t quit, you keep playing. There were going to be great lessons to learn from not quitting, and we came back. If we would have played better in the first half, we would have beaten that team. We were better than them.

“It was exciting because I had never been down that much and come back to win,” Barbay said. “The kids want to win. Everyone wants to win. It was a credit to our kids. They just didn’t quit. We’re excited about it, we’ll watch film Monday, go back to the drawing board and try to win the next one.”