Susan Harman

Your Prep Sports

NORTH LIBERTY – High school football is an emotional sport.

Sometimes adults forget that. The raw emotion of playing and losing a final home game was evident Friday night at Liberty High.

Many of the senior players took one knee at the center of the field and stared toward the scoreboard.

Some couldn’t fight off the emotion and cried. Underclassmen tried to provide support.

“It was the seniors’ last game on this field,” Liberty coach James Harris said. “They’re taking it hard. We had the opportunity to make the playoffs. They’ve gone through a lot of adversity. We really appreciate the work those seniors have done buying into the things I’ve asked this program to do.

“We wanted this one tonight.”

Burlington (6-2, 3-1) won 20-18 and punctured a hole in the Lightning’s Senior Night and ended their playoff chances.

The district champ and runner-up earn playoff sports. The Bolts (2-6, 2-2) had to win Friday and next week against Clinton.

The latter was well within their reach, but the former didn’t materialize.

The Lightning were complicit in their demise with critical turnovers and 10 penalties.

“Without a doubt,” Harris said. “We had opportunities. We had opportunities to score spoiled by turnovers. When you lose by two, you look at those things. They were a big factor in the game.”

Liberty High reached the Burlington 15 in the first quarter but Kanyae Baker’s interception halted the drive.

The Bolts lost a fumble at the Burlington 37-yard line with 2:40 left in the first half, but came back to score a touchdown in the final seconds of the second quarter after forcing a punt on a rare three-and-out.

A 46-yard punt return by Luke Meyers set up that score and enabled the Bolts to take a 15-12 halftime lead.

Trailing 20-18, Liberty put together a late fourth-quarter drive that reached the Burlington 27, but Jackson Carlson intercepted a pass intended for junior Christian Barney in the end zone with 5:25 left in the game.

The Grayhounds used their rushing attack to move the ball to midfield and eat up all but 29 seconds of game clock.

Still the Bolts mounted a desperate drive, reaching the Burlington 31 with 2.4 seconds left. Liberty’s Emerson Bennett tried a 48-yard field goal, but it fell short.

“We just ran out of time at the end,” Barney said.

The game was a showcase of tremendous running backs. Burlington senior Bryant Williams, who led 4A in rushing yardage with 1,569 coming in, rushed for 195 yards and two touchdowns despite Liberty’s attempts to devise a defense especially for him.

“We tried to mix up our fronts,” Harris said. “He’s a heck of a player. A lot of times we just kind of whiffed and he got by us.”

“He’s really fast and he can get out of tackles, so it was really tough,” Barney said. “But we finally picked it up at the end and got him down. We had to plug the holes and not let him get outside, but we just didn’t execute.”

“I know that my line, they grind out every day,” Williams said. “I grind out every day. They know it’s coming; they just can’t stop it.”

Liberty senior Darius Willis-Newell was nearly as productive, accumulating 162 yards and one TD. Both backs showed quick, darting moves as well as a knack for absorbing contact between the tackles.

                                    BUR                ICL                     

First downs                 15                    19

Rushing-yards            40-309             41-179

Comp-Att-Int              0-0-0               15-27-2

Passing-yards             0                      173

Punts-avg.                   3-27                 3-34

Fumbles-lost               1-1                   1-1

Penalties-yards           8-62                 10-85

Burlington                 6  6  8  0  –  20

Liberty High              7  8  3  0  –  18

ICL – Christian Barney 21 pass from Tye Hughes (Emerson Bennett kick)

BUR – Bryant Williams 56 run (run failed)

BUR – Williams 37 run (run failed)

ICL – Darius Willis-Newell 4 run (Willis-Newell run)

ICL – Bennett 22 field goal

BUR – Kanyae Baker 25 run (Baker run)

Individual statistics

RUSHING – Burlington: Bryant Williams 19-195, Kanyae Baker 14-84, Noah Nixon 4-21, Nolan Simpson 3-9. Liberty High: Darius Willis-Newell 35-162, Tye Hughes 6-17.

PASSING – Liberty High: Hughes 15-27-2-173.

RECEIVING – Liberty High: Christian Barney 4-63, Luke Meyers 4-50, Griffin Kraft 2-41, Lucas Meyer 1-7, Ja’Quez Hall 1-4, Wyatt Williams 1-3, Amari Thigpen 2-2.

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