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Liberty High faced a long road in its journey back to a third consecutive state semifinal appearance.

The Lightning were up to the task but came up one road win shy of a return trip to the Class 5A semifinals.

Liberty High fell to Ankeny 51-29 in a 5A quarterfinal at Ankeny Stadium in its second consecutive playoff road game on Friday.

“This time of the year, it’s, it’s hard to win, especially on the road,” first-year Liberty High head coach Mitch Wieland said. “We knew we were facing an uphill battle and our kids were ready for. Ready for that test, ready for that battle but ultimately we were a little short.”

Liberty High closed the season 7-4 with losses to three of the four Class 5A semifinalists.

Ankeny (9-2) will face Johnston in a Class 5A semifinal on Friday at 4 p.m. at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls.

“They just executed at a higher level than we did,” Wieland said. “A lot of stuff that we really hung our hat on that kind of got us to this point we didn’t execute it at that level and when the stakes are this high, you’ve got to be pristine and obviously that’s a super talented team, and our margin for error isn’t big enough to have some of these missed assignments that we had tonight.”

Liberty High erased a 14-0 first quarter deficit early, taking a 15-14 lead and trimmed a 44-15 second-half deficit to 44-29 and has the ball with under nine minutes to play but could get no closer.

“I can’t say enough about how proud I am of our of our effort not just our players but our coaches,” Wieland said. “At no point did anybody on this sideline lose hope, lose faith. I’m beyond thankful to be around such an awesome group of men that fight to the very end.”

Ankeny jumped to a 14-0 lead but Liberty High responded with 15 unanswered points to take its only lead of the game.

Pryor Reiners started the early momentum turn for the Lightning when he picked off a Mason Machan pass to set up the first Liberty High score.

Emerson Berner hit Adrian Clerry for a 25-yard scoring strike to cut the lead to 14-8.

Liberty High took the lead 15-14 on a 1-yard touchdown run by senior Brody Beaver with under 10 minutes to play in the first half.

Ankeny responded with 30 unanswered points to take a 44-15 lead but the Lightning had one final surge.

Liberty High cut the lead to 44-21 on a 6-yard touchdown pass from Berner to Clerry and got as close as 44-29 when Berner found Reiners for a 66-yard touchdown pass.

The Lightning recovered an onside kick following the Reiners score but couldn’t capitalize and Ankeny put the game out of reach.

“I feel like it’s just kind of the epitome of our team where things aren’t always going to go our way, there’s ebbs and flows in every game and I feel like we every game have done an awesome job of just staying the course, weathering the storm, powering on,” Wieland said. “I thought our response was exactly what I’d expect from this group of young men.”

Liberty High               8    7    0  14 –  29

Ankeny                       14  16  14  7  –  51

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