Immaculate Conception holds on at Byron
From cakewalk to dogfight.
Immaculate Conception scored 3 touchdowns in its first 9 plays, but it took until the final series before the Knights could claim a 35-27 win over host Byron in Saturday's first-round Class 3A playoff game.
"We seemingly had the game in control early on. We kind of eased up a little bit and let them back in and before you knew it we were in a dogfight, which was exactly what we were hoping to avoid," said Knights coach Mike Alberts.
After Conor Hendricks returned the opening kickoff 36 yards, Jose Godinez ran an option dive the remaining 49. James Peachey recovered the first of Byron's 4 lost fumbles and quarterback Cody Kotlow ran 55 yards for a touchdown. Byron went three-and-out and Kotlow threw a 75-yard touchdown pass to Tim Hipskind. No. 5 seed IC (7-3) led 21-0 at 3:50 of the first quarter.
Little did anyone know Godinez's second touchdown run, a 3-yarder early in the third quarter, would be required.
"It wasn't very intense a little bit, I'm not going to lie. But it was something we could handle," said Godinez, who ran for 103 yards on 16 carries.
No. 4 Byron (6-4) adjusted with a 55-yard touchdown run by Jared King, who ran for a game-high 135 yards, and Dustin Elsbury's 44-yard touchdown pass to Hunter Hill to cap a wild first quarter trailing 21-14.
"We just had to settle our kids down a little bit," Tigers coach Mike Elsbury said, "and once we settled down we started to play."
IC led 27-14 at halftime on an 11-yard TD run by Kotlow, who finished with 111 yards rushing.
"At halftime we were getting pretty riled up, just trying to get back into the game and work on what we need to work on," said linebacker Matt Mesnard.
Just into the second half, he jarred the ball loose from Dustin Elsbury and pounced on it, leading to Godinez's second touchdown run and a 35-14 lead at 10:29 of the third quarter.
Touchdowns by Elsbury through the air and on foot cut IC's lead to 35-21 with about 5:15 left to play. IC finally earned the right to host No. 1 seed Stillman Valley next week on linebacker Andre Wells' fourth-down tackle of Elsbury with 1:18 left.
"We kind of thought we were just going to ride through at first," Wells said. "Luckily we buckled down, did our job, did what we did in practice and it paid off."