ALEDO – Throughout Saturday’s Class 2A first-round playoff game, the Morrison Mustangs showed they still possessed the heart of a champion.

But while the seventh-seeded Mustangs had the heart and the will to compete, it was undefeated and second-seeded Mercer County making the clutch plays to fend off the defending 2A state football champions for a 25-14 victory.

“We were challenging to continue to go and go and go,” said Morrison coach Cory Bielema, whose club bows out at 6-4 with the program’s first opening-round loss since 2004. “We weren’t the deepest of teams to begin with, and we had some people dinged up, but the guys we had responded. We just couldn’t pull it off.”