Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

SOLON – Big Kaleb Behrends was pushing as hard as he could. All 6-foot-4, 280-pounds of him.

“I had the guy crash into me and I just pushed back as hard as I could,” Behrends said.

Brett White was pulling with everything he had.

“I was just blitzing and I blew the center back and I saw the guy coming and grabbed him and pulled him back,” White said.

Neither White or Behrends could see much as Benton Community quarterback Brenden Heying bulled his way toward the end zone.

But both say they knew Heying came up short of a game-winning touchdown.

“I didn’t see much but I heard everyone yelling,” Behrends said. “I knew he didn’t get it.”

Behrends, White and the rest of the Solon defense came up with a goal line stand in double overtime as Solon outlasted Benton Community 16-13 in a Class 3A, District 5 thriller at Spartan Stadium in Solon.

“I didn’t see the goal line but He didn’t get it,” White said. “He for sure didn’t get it.”

The goal line stand capped a wild game that featured eight turnovers and five field goals.

Solon committed five of the eight turnovers and had just five first downs and 182 total yards but managed to improve to 5-1 on the season and 2-0 in district play when it stopped Heying just shy of the goal line in the second overtime period.

“I am just really proud of our resilience because we overcame a lot,” Solon coach Lucas Stanton said. “A lot of credit to Benton we but felt a lot of it was self-induced. To come out of that game with a win is very fortunate but I think it shows how much we have grown as a team this year with our toughness. We didn’t give up right down to the final play.”

Solon senior kicker Grant Knipper made all three of his field goal attempts on Friday including two in overtime.

A 25 yarder by Knipper on the first possession for Solon in the second overtime gave the Spartans a 16-13 lead.

“I just wanted to stay locked in the best I can,” Knipper said. “There are a lot of things around you that can mess you up so I just had to stay locked in and stay focused.”

Benton Community had a chance to win it with a touchdown and had third and goal at the 2 yard line after back-to-back runs by senior Carson Bruns.

Solon stopped Bruns short of the goal line on third down setting up fourth and goal at the one.

“We knew they were going to run it right at us,” Behrends said. “So we knew we needed to gut up and finish the game.”

Benton Community, which rushed for 154 yards on 53 attempts on Friday, went to Heying needing a yard on fourth down.

White and Behrends stacked up the 170-pound quarterback near the line of scrimmage and Heying was ruled short of the end zone.

“It shows toughness,” White said. “We’ve come a really long way from week one. We are all really positive. We are playing for each other and we just have to win the game the rest doesn’t matter.”
The game was tied 3-3 at the half.

Benton Community took a 10-3 lead less than three minutes into the third quarter with a 4-play, 52-yard touchdown drive on its first possession of the second half capped by a 9-yard touchdown run by Bruns.

It remained 10-3 until the fourth when Solon put together its best drive of the game, a 9-play, 80-yard march that ended with a 6-yard touchdown run by Eddie Johnson.

The Johnson touchdown was set up by a 35-yard pass from Ty Bell to White on a third-and-9 play.

“I actually ran the wrong route, I just ran to the open space and Ty threw a really good ball,” White said. “That led to us getting a touchdown so that’s all you can ask.”

Both teams had opportunities to win the game in the final four minutes.

Solon was driving for a potential game-winning score when junior Dylan LeFebvere picked off a Bell pass and returned it to the Solon 42 yard line.

The Bobcats appeared poised to attempt a potential game-winning field goal moving to the Solon 5-yard line with under 10 seconds to play but lost a fumble that was recovered by Austin Knight.

Benton outgained Solon 233 to 182 and had an 11 to 5 advantage in first downs but it was Solon that came up with key plays at the right times.

“It was good to get a win like this,” White said. “I guess it was meant to be for us to win.”

                                       BC                   SOL

First downs                11                    5

Rushes-yards             53-154             28-94

Comp-Att-Int             8-15-0             9-19-3

Passing yards            79                    88

Total yards                233                  182

Punts-avg.                  6-32.8              4-27.3

Fumbles-lost              2-2                   6-3

Penalties-yards         3-15                 4-40

Benton Community          0  3  7  0  3  0  –  13

Solon                                      3  0  0  7  3  3  –  16

SOL – Grant Knipper 37 field goal

BC – Caleb Gessner 31 field goal

BC – Carson Bruns 9 run (Gessner kick)

SOL – Eddie Johnson 6 run (Knipper kick)

BC – Gessner 26 field goal

SOL – Knipper 22 field goal

SOL – Knipper 25 field goal

Individual statistics

RUSHING – Benton Community: Carson Bruns 27-103, Brenden Heying 23-71, Owen Tjelmeland 2-(-14), Team 1-(-6). Solon: Conlan Poynton 16-65, Eddie Johnson 8-27, Milo Ashbacker 1-5, Ty Bell 3-(-3).

PASSING – Benton Community: Brenden Heying 8-15-0 79. Solon: Ty Bell 9-19-3 88.

RECEIVING – Benton Community: Easton Pfiffner 5-61, Owen Tjelmeland 2-12, Jace Biery 1-4. Solon: Grant Knipper 4-46, Brett White 2-33, Conlan Poynton 1-5, Nash Kotar 1-4, Cole Buffington 1-0.

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