Bulldogs knocked out of the playoffs by top seed

The Harrisburg football team squeaked into the playoffs as one of the last three teams selected as a 16th seed, so the Bulldogs had to play at top seed Breese Central in the first round of the 4A playoffs. If certain plays had gone the other way the Bulldogs could have upset the Cougars instead of losing, 42-7, Saturday afternoon.

“We went into the game telling the guys you can’t rule anything out after (13th seed) Peoria Notre Dame (5-4) knocked off (4th seed) Rochester (7-2) the day before,” said Harrisburg coach Matt Griffth. “There are plenty of examples of that happening, but for us to do that we had to play our perfect game and execute on all phases to keep us in the game. The game plan was there and the execution was about 90 percent, but it was the last 10 percent to punch it in to get the scores we needed that didn’t work.”

Harrisburg ended the season with a 5-5 record while Breese Central remained undefeated at 10-0 and by a quirk of the scheduling system the Cougars will have to travel to 9th seed Murphysboro (8-2) for the second round game.

“I was really proud of the way our offensive line played - they only got one sack on us - so far the most part Owen Rann had no pressure and was able to make passes,” Griffith said. “We had a good run game and leaned on our sophomore Aiden Hankins to do a lot of our motions to try to get them off balanced. We got Aiden Unthank back at wide receiver to catch some passes when needed to. We were clicking and moving better than early in the season. Defensively, we were able to put pressure on the quarterback at times. Kane Lands was a big factor. Colt Prather and Reed Rider at middle linebacker and safety were leading in space.”

Harrisburg out-played Breese Central in the first half offensively as far as time consuming long drives were concerned, but except for three long pass plays might have gone into halftime with a big lead, but instead went into the locker room down 21-0 and never recovered.

“We had a couple drives early that were doing good, but penalties killed both those drives,” Griffith said. “We’ve been pretty injury stricken in the secondary on defense, but on two of those passes we had guys on the receivers and it was just a good ball and a good catch. Their secondary took over making it harder to complete passes, so the second half just got away from us.”

Breese Central won the coin flip and decided to kickoff, so that the Cougars would have the ball at the start of the second half. Harrisburg began the game on its own 38 and marched down the field using a mixture of pinpoint passes and solid runs to advance to the Cougar 25 facing 2nd-and-7.

It was there the Cougar defense stiffened dropping Rider for a two-yard loss before forcing Rann into overthrowing Unthank in the end zone on third down. On fourth down, Rann went to Unthank again, but the pass was knocked down.

Then the first killer play happened when Preston Baker dropped back on first down and hit Griffen Becker in stride for a 73-yard touchdown pass. Noah Koch kicked the extra point and 4:39 into the game the Cougars led 7-0.

The kickoff went into the end zone, so the Bulldogs began their next possession on their 20. Harrisburg was marching again collecting two first downs to advance to their own 47 on five plays, despite having to overcome a five-yard false start penalty.

However, a holding penalty pushed the Bulldogs back to the 37 and the drive stalled with a punt on 4th-and-15 from the 42. But, the football gods smiled with a 15-yard roughing the punter penalty that gave Harrisburg a new life at the Cougars' 43.

Two Brendan Hicks runs later the Bulldogs were at the 30, but the Cougar defense again stiffened stopping Rider for no gain on first down, tackling Aiden Hankins for a three-yard loss on second down and after a four-yard pass to Hicks sacking Rann for a six-yard loss on fourth down at the 29.

The defense came up big getting the ball back at the Breese 45 four plays later when Gavin Wayman and Colten Wheeler stopped Kaden Rakers on a fake punt on 4th-and-1.

Two Rann passes to Hankins later, the Bulldogs were at the 28, but a false start set them back five yards and what had become a pattern the Cougar defense again stiffened holding Hankins and Hicks to three yards on back-to-back runs leaving 3rd-and-12 from the 30.

Two incomplete passes later the Bulldogs still had a goose egg on the scoreboard despite three trips inside the 30 on its first three possessions.

After the Bulldog defense held the Cougars to one yard on first down, lightning struck again with Baker connecting with Carter Deien for a 69-yard touchdown pass to up the lead to 14-0 with 5:54 left in the first half.

The Cougar defense forced a three-and-out punt from the Harrisburg 38. But a high and wide snap threw the timing off on Hankins’ punt forcing a quick unbalanced kick that went only 16 yards setting up the Cougars at the Breese 46 with 4:10 left. On 3rd-and-3 Baker found Becker for a short pass that he turned into 47-yard touchdown. After the extra point, Breese led 21-0 with 3:30 still left in the second quarter.

To rub salt in the wounds that the score inflicted, the Bulldogs had run 31 plays for 127 yards while taking 15:54 off the clock with nothing to show for it, while on the other hand, the Cougars needed just one minute and 42 seconds to score three touchdowns on just six plays for 197 yards.

Harrisburg finished the first half with two three-and-out punt possessions gaining just 12 yards with the possessions ending at the Harrisburg 43 and the Breese 44. Breese was also forced to punt from its 24 after a 10-yard sack by Lands and ran out the last 27.3 seconds at the Harrisburg 43.

With Harrisburg needing a defensive stop and a quick touchdown to open the third quarter, the Cougars had another plan and executed it perfectly. Breese marched 65 yards on five plays, including a 28-yard pass on second down at the their 35 and a 19-yard pass on second down at the Harrisburg 31 to set up a 12-yard run by Rakers. Just 1:35 into the third quarter, the Cougars led 28-0.

“At halftime things weren’t going the way we wanted to, so we had some frustrations on both ends,” Griffith said. “The only option was to come out and keep swinging. And then they scored real quick and that left us with a huge uphill climb, but we kept swinging.”

Three plays later facing 3rd-and-12 from their 18, Rann tried a deep pass to Hankins near the left sideline, but Becker leaped high to intercept the ball at the 40. Five plays later, including a 34-yard pass on the second play to Deien, Baker threw his fourth touchdown pass and his third to Becker from the three-yard line to up the lead to 35-0.

One play later with the Bulldogs on their own 17 Becker stepped in front of Rann’s attempted screen pass to intercept the ball at the line of scrimmage and race into the end zone for a pick 6 touchdown to up the lead to 42-0 with just five minutes elapsed in the third quarter to trigger the running clock.

The Bulldogs snapped the Cougars shutout bid on its next possession driving 86 yards on 10 plays with Rann scoring from the one. Burke Wilson kicked the extra point with 31 seconds left in the third quarter.

The Cougars got the ball back to start the fourth quarter and with their reserves taking over kept the ball for the entire 12 minutes marching from its own 40 to the Harrisburg 11, where they knelt down twice to run out the clock.