Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

TIFFIN – From the atmosphere that included a near capacity crowd to the back-and-forth action on the field almost everything about Clear Creek Amana’s non-district finale with North Scott on Friday made for a high school football classic.

The only thing missing for the Clippers was a different ending.

Miller Haedt connected with Scott McCoy for a game-winning 13-yard touchdown pass in overtime as North Scott (2-2) stunned Clear Creek Amana 33-30 in a thriller in Tiffin.

“Those types of games are tough, they are hard to swallow,” Clear Creek Amana coach Lance Pedersen said. “There isn’t a lot to say other than our guys fought to the end and I am proud of them.”

Clear Creek Amana (2-2) scored 17 unanswered points after falling into a 20-10 deficit in the third quarter.

Senior quarterback Conlan Poynton tossed a 34-yard touchdown pass to Aren Schlemme and scored on a 1-yard run that gave the Clippers a 24-20 lead with 9:47 left in the game.

“At halftime we knew that we had made mistakes but we knew we had to come together and stay positive,” Poynton said.

Holding a 24-20 lead the Clippers had a first down at the Lancer 14 yard line with under six minutes to play.

That’s when the game swung.

North Scott stiffened on defense limiting Clear Creek Amana to an Aiden Gross field goal that pushed the lead to 27-20.

The Lancers then put together a six-play, 69-yard touchdown drive that was capped by a 16-yard touchdown run by Haedt that tied the game at 27-27 with 2:30 remaining.

Clear Creek Amana got into North Scott territory on its ensuing possession on a 35-yard strike from Poynton to Schlemme but would get no further and the game went to overtime tied at 27.

“One of the things you always want to do is have a chance to win at the end and we did,” Pedersen said. “We had a chance to win it at the end and you can start to critique and look back on things but I was proud of our guys for playing as hard as they possibly could.”

Clear Creek Amana settled for a 26 yard field goal from Gross on the opening possession of overtime.

North Scott faced third down from the 13 yard line on its offensive possession in overtime.\

Haedt rolled right, reversed fields to avoid pressure and rolled back to his left before finding McCoy open at the goal line for the game-winning touchdown.

“Our lesson on Tuesday was fear or failure, you can sit back and you can wait and see what is going to happen or you can go and try to make something happen,” Pedersen said. “Our guys were aggressive and I loved it. I’d rather be aggressive than sit back and have regrets. Our guys went for it and I was proud of them it just didn’t work out for us.”

Poynton rushed for 114 yards and two touchdowns and completed 9-of-21 passes for 122 yards and a touchdown as the Clippers finished with 297 yards of total offense.

“It’s not the result that we want but there is always a positive in a negative like this,” Poynton said. “There is always something to build off of, it’s only week four and we might get them in the playoffs that would be awesome. It’s just rough.”

Clear Creek Amana travels to Grinnell (1-3) for its Class 4A, District 4 opener next week where it will attempt to snap a two-game losing streak.

“Now our district play starts and that’s what our goal is,” Pedersen said. “Our goal is to win a district title and our goal is to make it to the state tournament and both of those are right in front of us.”

CCA                NS

First downs                22                    22

Rushes-yards             39-175             35-130

Comp-Att-Int            9-21-1             18-23-0

Passing yards             122                  202

Total yards                297                  332

Punts-Avg.                 3-34.7              1-27

Fumbles-lost              4-0                   0-0

Penalties-yards          6-45                 9-100

North Scott                            0  13  7   7   6 –  33

Clear Creek Amana             0  10  7  10  3 –  30

CCA – Conlan Poynton 17 run (Aiden Gross kick)

NS – Ryan Block 89 kick off return (Kick failed)

CCA – Gross 35 field goal

NS – Evan Kruse 17 run (Cole Green kick)

NS – Brady Hubner 13 pass from Miller Haedt (Green kick)

CCA – Aren Schlemme 34 pass from Poynton (Gross kick)

CCA – Poynton 1 run (Gross kick)

CCA – Gross 27 field goal

NS – Haedt 16 run (Green kick)

CCA – Gross 23 field goal

CCA – Scott McCoy 13 pass from Haedt  

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – CCA: Conlan Poynton 23-114, Ethan Vice 8-38, Noah Collis 7-21, Ian Kelley 2-5, Tay Seals 1-(-3). NS: Evan Kruse 14-75, Miller Haedt 18-62, Gage Wagner 2-1, Team 1-(-8).

PASSING – CCA: Conlan Poynton 9-21-1 122. NS: Miller Haedt 18-23-0 202.

RECEIVING – CCA: Wyatt Key 5-46, Aren Schlemme 3-73, Jonah Drake 1-3. NS: Benjamin Lightle 5-35, Ryder Maher 4-71, Ryan Block 4-51, Scott McCoy 2-26, Brady Hubner 2-17, Gage Wanger 1-2.

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