MIO – The high school football season might be over for the Mio Thunderbolts, but the accomplishments of one Thunderbolt senior will live on for a long time.
Mio’s senior quarterback Austin Fox set three state records this fall, including two in one game.
Fox threw for 621 yards and a whopping nine touchdowns in a wild game against Whittemore-Prescott that Mio actually wound up losing 68-62. Both of Fox’s passing totals broke the 8-player single-game state records. The old record for touchdown passes in a game was seven (accomplished five different times) and Fox surpassed the previous record for passing yards in a game (521) by 100 yards.
“I didn’t know until about the third quarter I had 400 or so yards,” Fox said. “So I was like ‘okay, having a pretty good game, let’s see where it goes from here.’ Then at the end of the game I was told 620+ yards and nine touchdowns and I was like… that’s pretty crazy.”
The Thunderbolts bounced back the next week with a big 53-12 win over Charlton Heston Academy in the season finale. In that game, Fox surpassed the 8-player state record for passing yards in a season (3,236 yards).
“Gage [Long] and Nathan [Hurst], they’re insane,” Fox said, referring to Mio’s two top wide receivers. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it without either of them. Both have over 1,000 yards of my 3,500. That’s pretty insane for around here.”
Fox also said he finished the season with 41 passing touchdowns, which is four shy of the state record.
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