Iowa City Liberty survives wild fourth quarter and ends Southeast Polk’s title reign

IOWA CITY — This game was so indescribable at times. Especially the fourth quarter.

So you asked members of the Iowa City Liberty football team to help you out and describe it for you.

“Crazy,” said Pryor Reiners. “Crazy stuff, man.”

“It’s football, that’s just what it was,” said Reece Rettig. “It was a Friday night football game in Iowa.”

Your thoughts Lightning head coach Scott Chandler?

“Frenetic, chaotic,” he said. “Right up our alley.”

Rettig’s 15-yard touchdown pass to Reiners with 1:30 left gave third-ranked Liberty a 31-28 win over Southeast Polk in a Class 5A state playoff quarterfinal Friday night that wasn’t officially sealed until the very last play: a 51-yard field-goal attempt by SEP that was short and wide right.

Thus there finally will be a new biggest-school champion, as Southeast Polk’s run of consecutive 5A titles comes to an end at four. Props to the Rams, who were champs that died incredibly hard.

They squeaked into last season’s playoffs with a 5-4 record, going on a postseason run that included a semifinal win over Liberty. They were 5-4 again this regular season, including a 38-20 loss to Liberty way back in Week 2, a game that the Lightning led in the fourth quarter, 38-0.

This was not that game.

“They’re such a well-coached team, an amazing team. They made so many improvements,” said Rettig, who threw for 215 yards and three touchdowns. “They were a completely new team, and we knew they were going to be. In the playoffs, they are a completely new animal. We wanted that game, especially after last year.

“It took so much out of us to get it. Now we’re going to put it all out there again.”

Put it all out there against Waukee Northwest (10-1) in a semifinal at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls that is next Friday night at 7.

“This is all of it,” an elated Chandler said. “This is all of the juice. I love it.”

A Collin Weis 42-yard field goal on the final play of the first half gave Liberty a 17-14 lead, and that kick turned out to be huge. This was still a 17-14 game going to the fourth quarter, with Southeast Polk scoring on the second play of said quarter via a Drew Thompson 3-yard touchdown run.

  Buy Photo

That TD was set up by a Dokken Biladeau interception and 86-yard return from the SEP 9 to the Liberty 5.

Liberty then went on a 16-play, 71-yard drive to go back ahead, 24-21, via a Cooper Lester 8-yard touchdown run off a jet sweep. The drive included three fourth-down conversions, including 4th-and-10 at the Lightning 40 and 4th-and-12 at the SEP 46.

Both times Rettig hit Reiners with first-down passes. Reiners finished with nine receptions for 116 yards and two TDs.

Chandler burned Liberty’s second-half timeout allotment before each of the fourth downs. But it was worth it.

“That’s our coach. It didn’t surprise me at all,” Reiners said. “Coach Chandler always goes for it on fourth down. Coming out of those timeouts ... he’s a great play caller, a great coach. He just drew up a couple of plays, and we made it happen.”

Southeast Polk, however, returned serve, going on a 73-yard touchdown drive capped by running back Stanley Cooper’s 28-yard scoring run with 2:23 to go. That made it a 28-24 Rams lead.

But Liberty wasn’t fazed. It came right back, starting what turned out to be the winning drive with a 29-yard completion from Rettig to Reiners into SEP territory.

  Buy Photo

A couple of runs and a pass interference penalty on Southeast Polk took the football to the Rams 15. Reiners, lined up in the slot, beat his defender on a post route and hauled in the go-ahead, winning TD.

“I was happy (Cooper) scored. It gave us a chance,” Chandler said. “We didn’t have any timeouts left. Tackle them there, and they could probably wind (the clock) down quite a bit. So I was happy he scored there. We got lucky.

“Then Pryor just coming up with big catch after big catch. The kid would not be denied tonight.”

Liberty’s ensuing kickoff was muffed by a Southeast Polk returner and ended up out of bounds at the Rams 2 with 1:27 left. Still SEP was able to make things interesting, with eventual pass plays of 20 yards and 11 yards bringing the Rams to the Liberty 34 with a second left.

The tying field-goal attempt wasn’t really close, and that was it.

Southeast Polk’s ground-and-pound approach netted 203 yards rushing, including 155 on 19 carries and two touchdowns from Drew Thompson. He scored on a 74-yard TD run on the very first offensive play of the game.

Southeast Polk’s mammoth offensive line, went unbalanced at times and included a sixth lineman other times.

“They definitely had a huge size advantage,” said Liberty defensive lineman Alex Strunk, who had a huge sack on SEP’s final drive. “But our team’s got more speed, so we were able to get around them.”

And past them into the semifinals.

(At Iowa City Liberty)

Southeast Polk 7 7 0 14-28

Iowa City Liberty 7 10 0 14-31

Team Statistics

First Downs - Southeast Polk 15, Iowa City Liberty 20. Rushes-Yards - Southeast Polk 34-203, Iowa City Liberty 29-129. Passing - Southeast Polk 7-11-0-92, Iowa City Liberty 22-37-2-230. Punts-Average - Southeast Polk 2-37.0, Iowa City Liberty 1-39.0. Penalties-Yards - Southeast Polk 6-65, Iowa City Liberty 5-30. Fumbles-Lost - Southeast Polk 1-1, Iowa City Liberty 0-0.

Individual Statistics

Southeast Polk - Rushing: Drew Thompson 19-155, Stanley Cooper 10-67, Boston Bailey 5-(minus) 19. Passing: Boston Bailey 7-11-0-92. Receiving: Brayden Lewis 7-64, Owen Vossberg 3-28.

Iowa City Liberty - Rushing: Reece Rettig 12-61, Brody Beaver 9-23, Pryor Reiners 4-21, Leo Rozz 2-11, Cooper Lester 1-8, Jordan Schroeder 1-5. Passing: Reece Rettig 21-36-1-215, Cooper Lester 1-1-0-15. Receiving: Pryor Reiners 9-116, Brody Beaver 4-41, Jordan Schroeder 3-28, Tate Rettig 3-18, Landon Bell 1-17, Adrian Clerry 1-9, Cooper Lester 1-1.

  Buy Photo

Comments: jeff.johnson@thegazette.com