Defense powers L-S football to playoff win over Pekin

SULLY — Losing your best offensive weapon to an injury is never easy. The Lynnville-Sully football team has played most of the 2023 season without all-state tailback Corder Noun Harder, and another injury forced more changes to the Hawks’ offense recently.

Lynnville-Sully faced its adversity head-on on though and rode its defense to a dominating 28-6 win over Pekin on Friday during the opening round of the Class A playoffs.

The 10th-ranked Hawks held the Panthers to 108 total yards and the offense rushed for 234 in the home victory.

“It has everything to do with the guys. Their willingness, their flexibility and just that inner grit about them,” Lynnville-Sully head football coach Mike Parkinson said about the constant changes this season. “They just play hard no matter where they are at on the field. We’ve made a lot of changes and tried to adapt each week to what we got. The guys just fall in line wherever we need them. It’s that next man in philosophy.”

When Noun Harder went down in Week 2, Lannon Montgomery moved from quarterback to running back with CJ Nikkel.

Lucas Sieck took over at quarterback from Week 2 on but an injury last week forced him out of the lineup for the postseason opener.

Montgomery then was moved back to quarterback for the matchup with Pekin and Dawson James went from guard to fullback to tight end during the course of the season.

“I’m a tight end now,” James said. “I just go to practice and see what they have for me and they tell me what to do that week. I give it everything I have on the guy I am supposed to be blocking.”

The Hawks drew No. 3 ACGC in the next round. They will play the Chargers (9-0) at 7 p.m. on Friday in Guthrie Center.

While the Hawks’ offense wasn’t always pretty on Friday, they did run for 234 yards on 49 carries.

James was often the lead blocker for Montgomery and Nikkel and Terran Gosselink got loose for a 50-yard touchdown run to open the scoring in the first quarter.

Nikkel ran for 75 yards and one score on 17 carries, Montgomery gained 71 yards and scored one TD on 22 carries and Gosselink ran for 65 yards and the long score on six carries.

The Hawks had a 17-5 advantage in first downs and the defense pitched a shutout as Pekin’s only points came on an 81-yard kickoff return by Jaxon Kirkbride in the second quarter.

The Panthers (6-3) came into the game averaging 7.7 yards per carry. Pekin rushed for more than 2,000 yards this fall and won its three most recent games by a combined score of 161-6.

“All that stuff is poster board material that you can find a lot of motivation with. Our defense doesn’t need extra motivation though,” Parkinson said. “They understand their assignments, they fly to the football and we tackled really well tonight. The defense just needs to do their job and make the play. We don’t have to be spectacular on every snap.”

Pekin quarterback Will Adam entered the week with 1,100 passing yards, 652 rushing yards and 21 total touchdowns.

But the Panthers were limited to 66 rush yards and 44 passing yards by Lynnville-Sully’s stout defense.

“That QB made a lot of teams look silly this year, but the guys did a good job keeping him inside,” Parkinson said. “They prepared really well this week.”

Both teams turned the ball over on downs on their first possession of the game. Then, the Hawks lost a fumble on their second drive.

But Carson Maston picked off Adam to give the ball right back to the Hawks. He dissected a screen pass perfectly, dropped back into coverage and snagged the pick on third and nine to halt the drive.

Gosselink scored on a 50-yard touchdown run two plays later to put the Hawks on the board.

The L-S defense forced a three-and-out on Pekin’s next possession. James and Keegan DeWitt both had tackles for loss on the drive.

The offense then marched 60 yards in eight plays. The Hawks did most of their damage on the ground and Nikkel capped the possession with a 24-yard TD run.

“It’s been difficult. We’ve made changes every week it seems like, but we’ve adapted well. I think we’re getting there offensively,” Nikkel said. “I just try to play my best for this team, whether that be on a kickoff return or getting tough yards as a running back.”

Another three-and-out that included a tackle for loss by Klayton Van Dyke forced Pekin to punt and the Hawks scored again on a seven-play, 57-yard drive.

Not even two 10-yard penalties would slow down Lynnville-Sully (8-1) on the possession. Nikkel ran for 12 yards after a 15-yard facemask penalty by Pekin gave the Hawks a first down.

Four plays later, Montgomery hooked up with Blake Van Wyk for a 23-yard touchdown. That made it 22-0 with 5:10 to go until halftime.

Pekin answered with the long kickoff return, but DeWitt blocked the extra point attempt to keep it at 22-6.

That was the halftime score, too, and the only points of the second half came on a 1-yard TD run by Montgomery in the fourth.

With Sieck missing the game due to injury, the Hawks also had to find a new kicker and punter.

Van Wyk handled the PATs and booted a touchback on a kickoff and DeWitt handled the punting duties.

L-S also turned the ball over in the third after a double pass resulted in an interception in the end zone.

But Montgomery snagged a pick on the very next play and the L-S defense forced another turnover later as Jack Bowlin forced a fumble that was recovered by Wyatt Mathis.

That set up the fourth-quarter touchdown. The Hawks needed four plays to go 12 yards and Montgomery capped it with a QB sneak into the end zone.

“Tonight, this is exactly who we are,” Parkinson said. “Defense like crazy. Offense scores when we need to score. I think there will be a week where we put it in the end zone a lot. I thought we were close tonight.”

Montgomery finished 7-of-14 through the air for 85 yards and the TD pass to Van Wyk. He also had an interception on defense.

Van Wyk hauled in five passes for 68 yards and the score, James had two catches for 17 yards and Gavin Fisk gained 23 yards on his four carries.

James led the defense with 7.5 tackles, while Mathis had 3.5 tackles and a fumble recovery, Bowlin and DeWitt each had 4.5 tackles and Van Dyke totaled four tackles.

“The guards were taking us everywhere tonight,” James said. “We just had to make the play, and we made most of the tackles we should have made.”

Van Dyke registered three tackles for loss, Bowlin forced a fumble, Nikkel registered one sack and Maston and Montgomery snagged one interception each. Maston also tallied one sack.

Sven Dahlstrom led the Panthers with 40 rushing yards on 10 carries, 31 yards on four catches and 10 tackles on defense.

Notes: The Hawks improved to 3-2 against Pekin since 2012. L-S has won three straight in the matchup. It defeated the Panthers 35-7 in 2017 and 43-14 in 2016. … Both L-S and Pekin faced Danville this season. The Panthers won 36-13 on Sept. 8, while the Hawks downed the Bears 54-13 on Aug. 25. ... ACGC is one of five undefeated teams left in Class A. The Chargers defeated Mount Ayr twice this fall, including in the opening round of the postseason.