Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports  

SOLON – With the game on the line the options were all on the table for Blake Timmons.

Run it, throw it the Solon junior quarterback had the freedom to do either on a critical third down play with under three minutes to play and the Spartans clinging to a seven-point lead.

In reality, Timmons had a feeling where the ball was going before the snap.

To the same person Timmons had been throwing passes to for more than 10 years.

Timmons hooked up with his older brother Jacob for a 34 yard strike on a third-and-seven play with 2:35 left to held third-ranked Solon hold off Davenport Assumption 24-17 in a Class 3A playoff opener on Friday at chilly Spartan Stadium.

“We’ve been playing catch in every single sport together since we were little,” Blake Timmons said. “That’s what we’ve been doing all summer is throwing balls just like that and that helps a ton.”

Solon (10-0) never trailed on Friday but couldn’t put away Assumption (6-4) until the Timmons brothers hooked up on that third down conversion in the final minutes.

The win came after Solon routed Davenport Assumption 38-10 in Davenport back on September 16 and sends the Spartans to the quarterfinals for the third consecutive season.

Solon will travel to fifth-ranked West Delaware (9-1) next Friday after the Hawks defeated Grinnell 48-0 in the opening round.

“We knew they would come in as a completely different team with a completely different attitude,” Blake Timmons said. “It’s a whole new season in the playoffs so it didn’t matter what we did in the regular season.”

Both of the Timmons brothers had their finger prints all over Friday’s opening-round win.

Blake Timmons rushed for 98 yards and a touchdown and threw for 114 more yards and Jacob Timmons caught two passes for 51 yards and stopped a first-quarter Assumption drive with an interception.

It was the late Timmons to Timmons completion that finally put away a pesky Assumption squad.

On third-and-seven from the Solon 32 Solon coach Lucas Stanton gave Blake Timmons a run pass option.

“He’s a heck of a player and he’s a competitor,” Stanton said of Timmons. “We’ve ridden him all year and we needed a first down at that point and we said lets put the ball in our best players’ hands. We gave him an option to run or pass if he thought he could get the first down with his legs go ahead and he saw Jacob out there wide open.”

Blake Timmons rolled to his right as the Assumption linebackers gave chase he fired a perfect pass to his older brother cutting toward the Solon sideline.

“The first read was for him to take off if he could but the linebackers had been flying in all night on the fake so we knew it was going to be open,” Jacob Timmons said. “As soon as I cut back out there was nobody there.”

Jacob Timmons made the catch, broke a tackle and raced 34 yards to the Knight 34 yard line.

A couple of kneel downs later and Solon was headed back to the quarterfinals.

“We have a lot of confidence in each other and trust in each other,” Jacob Timmons said. “We’ve been throwing the ball to one another since we were little so we have a lot of confidence in each other and we know we can make the play.”

After a scoreless first quarter Solon took a 7-0 lead when junior Sean Stahle scored on a 1 yard touchdown run on fourth down on the first play of the second quarter.

Stahle ripped off a 48 yard run on the ensuing Spartan possession to make it 14-0.

Assumption cut the lead in half on a 45 yard touchdown run by John Argo with 1:00 left in the first half.

Stahle returned the ensuing kickoff 64 yards and Brent Lumpkin nailed a 26 yard field goal to give Solon a 17-7 halftime cushion.

“That was huge it gave us a little bit of momentum back,” Blake Timmons said. “We knew we were getting the ball to start the second half so that really shifted the momentum back in our favor.”

Assumption got back in the game on a 53 yard touchdown run by Angelo Jackson just 90 seconds into the second half and trailed just 24-17 when Billy Moore hit a field goal 3:31 left.

The Knights would never get the ball back.

“We have the mindset that we are going to face some adversity but we know we are going to get through it,” Blake Timmons said. “We know we are a good enough team to get through some adversity and that’s what we did today.”

            SOL                DA

First downs                 20                    13

Rushes-yards              48-229             34-251

Comp-Att-Int              6-17-0             5-17-2

Passing yards              114                  69

Total yards                  343                  320

Punts-avg.                   6-31                 4-39

Fumbles-lost               2-0                   0-0

Penalties-yards           8-68                 6-50

Solon                                            0  17  0  7  –  24

Davenport Assumption        0   7   7  3  –  17

SOL – Sean Stahle 1 run (Brent Lumpkin kick)

SOL – Stahle 48 run (Lumpkin kick)

DA – John Argo 45 run (Billy Moore)

SOL – Lumpkin 26 field goal

DA – Angelo Jackson 53 run (Billy Moore)

SOL – Blake Timmons 30 run (Lumpkin kick)

DC – Billy Moore 36 field goal

Individual statistics

RUSHING – Solon: Sean Stahle 23-128, Blake Timmons 24-98, Michael Pipolo 1-3. Davenport Assumption: John Argo 15-115, Angelo Jackson 11-93, Ayden Weiman 8-43

PASSING – Solon: Blake Timmons 6-17-0 114. Davenport Assumption: Ayden Weiman 5-16-2 69, John Argo 0-1-0 0.

RECEIVING – Solon: Jacob Timmons 2-51, Oaken Foster 3-48, Brady Mullen 1-15. Davenport Assumption: John Ago 2-45, Foster Caspers 1-10, David Neuberger 1-7, Reese Harris 1-7.

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