by Joseph Lekarczyk
Conventional wisdom said it would be a cakewalk for the highly touted Lyons Lions football team versus the Clear Creek Gold Diggers last Friday night. Lyons had already won their league title, and the team had secured home field advantage for this week’s play-off game (Saturday, November 5, at 1 p.m., versus Peyton). Added to the festivities, it was also “Senior Night,” at John “Jett” Johnson Field when senior football players, cheerleaders, and their parents were honored at half time. Unfortunately, someone forgot to send the memo to the Gold Diggers.
The Lions got on the board first, with a twelve-yard scamper by senior Forrest Donnell. The point after attempt was no good, and that was just a harbinger of the miscues that were to haunt (Halloween pun intended) the home team throughout the first two quarters. The temperatures plummeted as the sun sank below the ridge, and perhaps this contributed to some of the errors on the field. Clear Creek hung tough on defense, as drive after drive by the Lions stalled because of mistakes and penalties. Midway through the second quarter, Gold digger QB Conner Gunderson lofted a beautiful pass to Tevin Lucas, who promptly turned it into a sixty-yard score. The point after kick put Clear Creek up 7 to 6.
On the next series, at about mid-field, Lyons lost the handle on the ball, which was scooped up by Clear Creek with clear sailing to the end zone. It looked like a sure Gold digger score, when Kyle Dick stripped the ball from behind at the one-yard line, and it bounced through the end zone for a touch back (Lyons got the ball on their own twenty-yard line). A huge break for Lyons! Instead of being down by a touchdown, Lyons went into the locker room with a one-point deficit at the half.
Whatever Coach Nichols said to his team at half time, it worked! The Lions defense held the Gold Diggers scoreless the rest of the way, and the offense came out and scored twenty points in the third quarter, on a couple of short keepers by quarterback Jordan Melani, and a fifty-three yarder by Jayse Long.
Just before the end of the third quarter, everyone got a very vivid reminder that this is a dangerous contact sport. Lyons junior Erik Blair was involved in a “helmet to helmet” collision as he was attempting to bring down a Clear Creek runner. Blair lay motionless on the field for twenty to thirty minutes as EMTs attended him before taking him by ambulance to the hospital. He sustained a severe concussion, and will not be playing in this week’s game.
Donnell finished the scoring with a thirty-five-yard field goal in the fourth quarter. The Lyons ground game (263 yards rushing) was led by Jayce Long with thirteen carries for eighty-nine yards; Jordan Melani, twenty carries for eighty-six yards; and Erik Blair, three carries for thirty-four yards. The Lions defense held the Gold diggers to negative twenty yards on sixteen attempts. This hard fought win came at a high price for the Lions: already without the services of speedy wide receiver Anthony Triffet, who injured his knee in last week’s game, Blair is definitely out for Saturday’s game, and Kyle Dick also left the game with a mild concussion, and his status is undetermined.
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