Gallery by Heather Belcher
Coal City – Three weeks after squandering a 23-7 halftime lead in an eventual 37-30 loss at Class AAA No. 2 Herbert Hoover, Independence head coach John H. Lilly was curious to see how his team would handle the situation again, even if he didn’t want to face it.
The bottom line, his Patriots won making the necessary plays.
All-state linebacker Landon Riddle made a diving interception at the Independence 6 with just over a minute to go, helping the Patriots stave off a second-half rally from Scott and secure a 30-24 victory Friday evening at Independence.
The finish was worthy of a clash of Class AA titans, though it seemed unlikely through 24 minutes.
Excelling in all three phases, the host Patriots built a commanding 30-6 halftime advantage with their special teams unit earning most of the spotlight. They returned a kickoff 84 yards for a touchdown courtesy of Brady Rose, benefitted from a high snap on a punt attempt that resulted in a safety, set the Indy offense up twice near the 50 and twice more in Scott territory, made sure the Skyhawks went scoreless on both of their two-point conversion attempts and blocked a PAT to boot.
The six points lost to failed PATs and conversion attempts ultimately decided the game.
“It’s the difference,” Lilly said. “And when you play good opponents, that was preseason No. 1, and they’re well coached, you need to be good there. I think they played their best game of the year too. And you’ve got to win on special teams. And you know right now, we’re really, really beat up. You know, we played four freshmen in there on the offensive line tonight, and two sophomores. We’re still a work in progress, but it’s making us better as we go through the year, and hopefully we’ll be battle tested.”
Much like in last week’s win at Nicholas County, once the Patriots got rolling they were difficult to stop.
After punting on their first drive and forcing a turnover on downs at their own 16, they took the field and marched 84 yards in eight plays finding pay dirt when QB Brock Green connected with Dalton Adkins from 15 yards out. Their following drive was halted when Green’s fourth-and-7 heave to Christian Linksweiler was intercepted by Carter McClung and returned 99 yards for a would-be score. A flag on the play indicating pass interference was picked up but one on Carter’s return negated the touchdown, still giving the Skyhawks prime field position.
It took them two plays to capitalize with Scott QB Nate Easterling connecting with Brayden Clark for a 8-yard score.
It took all of 13 seconds for Indy to answer with Rose’s return score, pushing the lead to 14-6.
Meanwhile Scott’s offense struggled to keep up without short fields.
The Skyhawks had just 43 yards of total offense before their final drive of the half, one that added 34 yards in 11 seconds before the intermission buzzer sounded.
Making matters worse was the fact Indy’s offense showed no signs of slowing down with a 53-yard run from Sylas Nelson and an acrobatic 10-yard touchdown catch by Dylan Ritchie extending the lead.
On their way to a blowout loss, the Skyhawks composed and answered after the break. Easterling, who finished 26 of 48 passing for 245 yards with four touchdown passes, led a nine-play, 82-yard scoring drive to open the third quarter, connecting again with Clark.
Trailing 30-12 heading into the final quarter, injuries and an inability to move the ball caught up to the Patriots.
Easterling led scoring drives of 76 and 61 yards in the final frame, both ending the same way the first two did – with touchdown passes to Clark.
“We kept stepping our own toes and stubbed our toes in the first half,” Scott head coach Jeremy Dolin said. “We weren’t running the ball well so we had to take what they were giving us and they were giving the pass. We got a young quarterback who’s only making his fifth career start. I’m sure Max (Lilly) and John knew that, and they were prepared for that, but I think he played a hell of the game. Super proud of Nate Easterling. I thought Clark had a hell of a night. I thought he did awesome. He had that drop early and I kind of chewed him out, and then he made a tough catch over the middle got drilled. Like I told them out there, we’ve won a lot of big games my first four years here. But I don’t know if I’ve ever been more proud of the team than I am tonight for not giving up being down 30-6 at halftime and coming out and almost winning that football game. So much respect to coach Lilly and his staff and his players and stuff. But I’m super proud of my boys tonight as well.”
Independence’s offense didn’t help the cause.
Leading 30-24 with just under three minutes to play, a fumbled exchange on a handoff was recovered by Scott at the Indy 44.
A 24-yard completion on fourth-and-6 put the Skyhawks at the Indy 16 as the clocked rolled under two minutes but an incompletion was followed by a second-down heave into triple coverage with a ricocheting ball finding the mitts of Riddle.
“I would like to think that we’ve played in so many big games in the last two or three years that they don’t get overwhelmed with the moment,” Lilly said. “And I’m really proud of them because, even though we’re young they’ve played in big games and playoff atmospheres against good football teams. And I don’t think the moment was too big for them.”
The final defensive play made up for the second half struggles of the Patriots offense.
While Scott collected 241 yards after the intermission, Independence mustered just 28, averaging two yards per play, excluding kneel downs. Their only first down came via a penalty.
“The big thing is we’re playing some of the young people,” Lilly said. “They’re going to have to get over the learning curve when we’re playing some of the young kids. It’s really not schematical. We have a freshman quarterback and we got three freshmen linemen tonight. One of them got hurt, and now we’re into another freshman. So thank God our freshman program was so good last year and they could come up. It almost got so bad, we had to get some relief from our middle school to come up and help us.”
Nelson led Indy with 118 yards and a touchdown on 25 carries while Green completed 50 percent of his passes for 78 yards and two scores.
Carson Brinegar was Easterling’s top target with 12 receptions for 124 yards while lark scored on four of his five receptions.
Independence (3-1) will host Bluefield (1-3) next week.
I: 7 23 0 0 – 30
S: 0 6 6 12 – 24
Q1
