Wildcats Hail Mary Beats Bears 49-45

The Arizona Wildcats squared off against the California Golden Bears Saturday night in a match up of the unbeaten. Our own Gabe Encinas wrote a preview of this game, click here to check it out. The Bears took the lead early on and the Wildcats looked vulnerable. The third play of the game was a 44 yard touchdown run from Daniel Lasco who would go on to total over a 100 yards rushing.

The Wildcats were down 14-0 before they responded in the second quarter. Casey Skowron who missed a field goal in the first quarter,  connected on a 39 yard field goal that put the Wildcats on the board. California QB Jared Goff was absolutely brilliant in the first half. He led the Golden Bears to a 28-6 lead at half time behind 296 yards passing and three touchdowns.

All signs seemed to point to the Bears walking out of Tuscon with an easy victory before the Wildcats made a furious comeback. Anu Solomon connected with Cayleb Jones for a 41 yard touchdown pass. Jones had a huge game for the Wildcats as they struggled to do anything in the run game. Jones caught 13 passes for  186 yards and three touchdowns has he was a key component of the offense.

The Wildcats running game struggled all night at Solomon would end up with the most the rushing yards. A poor running game combined with a large deficit early in the game forced Solomon to make 73 pass attempts. In the 4th quarter the Wildcats made a furious comeback for the ages.

Solomon threw touchdown passes to Austin Hill and Jones once again as the Wildcats trailed 38-30 with 8 minutes left. The Wildcats defense was exhausted however and the Bears made them pay as Khalfani Muhammad punched in a ten yard touchdown run which seemed to close the door.

However, on the next drive Arizona responded. Solomon lead a 8 play 75 yard drive which ended in a Terris Jones-Grigsby touchdown run. The drive took just 1:51 and the Wildcats trailed 45-37 with 3:30 to go.

After a key stop the Cats got the ball back and no other than Cayleb Jones would make the big play. Solomon found Jones on the end of a 15 yard touchdown pass that gave Jones his third of the game. Down by 2 with less than 3 minutes left in the game the Wildcats had to go for two but were unsuccessful.

Cal had a chance to ice the game but kicker James Langford missed a field goal of his own. With a minute left the Wildcats had one last chance to  complete the comeback.

With four seconds left Solomon threw up a Hail Mary that found Austin Hill in the end-zone and the Wildcats beat the Bears 49-45 as time expired.

With the win Arizona improves to 4-0 on the season, and will have to face the high-powered Oregon Ducks next. Arizona will travel to Oregon to take on the Ducks on Thursday, October 2 at 7:30 p.m.

To view the rest of the Arizona Wildcats schedule click here.

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