[media-credit name=’Ben Smidt’ align=’alignnone’ width=’648′][/media-credit]TUCSON, Ariz. — Rarely does a pair of struggling placekickers decide a football game. Then again, how often does a thunderstorm blow through the desert? On a bizarre day in Tucson, the kickers took center stage.

From the start, senior Mike Allen was an unlikely hero. In ideal conditions, he had converted just two of five field goal attempts on the year. He had missed his last two, including a 23-yard chip shot. Things could not get much worse for Mike Allen.

Enter tropical storm Javier.

In the second quarter, a torrential downpour left the field slick and waterlogged, causing daunting conditions for the kicking game. During the ensuing 88-minute rain delay, Allen discovered just how trying the second half would be.

“I came out during the delay, no one else was out there,” Allen said. “I was playing around on the field trying to get my footing and I planted and I slipped a foot and a half. I tore up a foot and a half of grass. Right there, I went to Coach, Coach Alvarez and Coach Murphy, and said, ‘I’m not going to be able to kick anything over 35 yards. I’m going to have to tiptoe to the ball.'”

Prior to the storm, head coach Barry Alvarez had sent a telling message to his beleaguered kicker. Early in the first quarter, Allen watched as the Badgers went for it on fourth down twice inside the red zone rather than attempt a field goal. In a scoreless game, Alvarez opted to risk a turnover on downs instead of bringing Allen out for a short kick.

Allen did not see action until the fourth quarter, when he was called on to kick the extra point after tailback Booker Stanley put the Badgers on the board with a touchdown. On a miscue that could have decided the game, Allen missed wide right to give the Wildcats a 7-6 lead.

“It was huge,” Allen said. “It was tough. It was wet, bad snap, bad hold, and bad kick. It was all three phases were not there, and that was really frustrating. It was such an important game for us.”

Allen would have to put the play behind him in a hurry. A late Wisconsin drive put the embattled kicker in position for a 23-yard field goal with the game on the line.

“I’ve learned a lot from the D-backs,” Allen said. “Scott Starks, Jimmy Leonhard and Rob Brooks, they’ve all been like, ‘you miss something, you screw up on a play, forget it, it’s over’, and that’s what I did.”

With 3:47 on the clock and his team trailing by one point, Allen lined up a potential game-winning field goal.

“Mentally, you don’t think about it; you can’t think about it,” Allen said. “If you think about it, then you’re going to miss.”

With the rain still coming down, Allen came through with the biggest kick of the year. After a season of struggles, Allen had found redemption in the desert.

“That’s always the mentality I’ve always had and always will have; I don’t dwell on the past, good or bad,” Allen said. “Anything that happened in the past is over, it doesn’t matter to me.”

But Allen’s adversity was not over yet. After his heroics, Allen watched from the sidelines as the Wildcats staged a late drive that set up a potential game-winner for Arizona placekicker Nick Folk.

“I know he’s going to miss it,” Allen said. “That’s what I like to think in my mind. He’s obviously thinking the same thing when I kick it.”

With Allen looking on, Folk’s 47-yard kick sailed wide and the Badgers escaped with a 9-7 victory. After missing three field goals and an extra point in two trying weeks, Allen would leave Tucson a hero.

“I needed that bad,” Allen said. “I came off a horrible game this last week, and this game I’m not going to say was that good, it really wasn’t, with the missed extra point. The conditions were horrible and other things come into play, but there’s no excuses for anything like that. I need to make everything.”