Wildcats denied third straight league title in loss to Spring Hill

As the final buzzer sounded Friday at Wildcat Stadium, members of the Louisburg football team found themselves in uncharted territory.

For nearly three years, the Wildcats hadn’t lost a Frontier League game and had won 19 straight league contests going into Friday’s Senior Night game against Spring Hill. And just like the last three years, Louisburg’s final game with Spring Hill would decide the Frontier League title.

The streak, unfortunately, came to an end for the Wildcats as they suffered a 14-13 setback to the Broncos and lost their first game of the season, along with their No. 1 ranking in Class 4A.

“At this point, it is kind of hard to grasp on what we accomplished in the league and it is tough to see it come to an end,” Louisburg coach Drew Harding said. “We were two points away from continuing the streak and it is definitely a tough loss.

“I felt like we played pretty decent overall. We just had a couple errors and some penalties that kind of cost us. I don’t think we played bad by any means, I think they just played a little bit better.”

Prior to the game, the Wildcat team honored their 24 senior players and three senior managers with their parents. Russell Wiseman, Logan Henry, Josh Holtzen, Daniel Aponte Soto, Reid McCaskill, Conlee Hovey, Wyatt Crooks, Garrison Bloustine, Myles Vohs, Emmett White, Alex Saad, Ashton Moore, Lucas Swartz, Darby Van Eaton, Erik Lien, Aidan Meyer, Jacob Bentz, Roy Bauer, Brayden Yoder, Nate Capuro, Jimmy DeVary, Xander Lucas, Miles Meek and Aiden Kennedy were recognized, along with managers Jazzy Leach, Sami Lane and Liz Willming.

It was a defensive battle for most of the night, despite both teams scoring on their opening drives. Spring Hill (7-1) took the lead first on a 7-yard touchdown run by quarterback Jordan Miller, then the Wildcats (7-1) answered when Ashton Moore found the endzone on a 1-yard run.

From there, opportunities to score were few and far between.

Louisburg junior Blaise Vohs gave the Wildcats the lead in the kicking game with a 30-yard field goal in the second quarter to put the Wildcats up 10-7 at halftime.

The lead widened with another Vohs field goal in the third quarter, this time a 26-yarder. Spring Hill, however, had an answer as it drove down the field and scored on a 3-yard run to go up 14-13.

“Spring Hill just made a couple more plays than we did,” Harding said. “I think we just made a few too many mental errors. We kicked two field goals in the redzone and that turned out to be the difference. If we could cash one or two of those in then it is a completely different game.”

The Broncos tried to extend its lead with a field goal of their own, but the 37-yard try was blocked by Conlee Hovey and gave the Wildcats some momentum with nine minutes left in the game.

Louisburg quarterback Alex Saad found Myles Vohs for a 39-yard diving catch to the Spring Hill 38-yard line. Then Saad hit Vohs again for another first down to the 25.

Then on third down at the 20-yard line, Saad’s pass was tipped at the line of scrimmage and intercepted by the Broncos with just under five minutes left. Spring Hill would run out the clock on the Wildcats’ hopes for a third straight league title.

“It was tough,” Harding said. “It was just a tipped pass and the kid made a heck of a play on the interception. It was unfortunate that it kind of happened that way.”

The connection between Saad and Myles Vohs was big for most of the night. Myles led the way with seven catches for 128 yards and Saad completed 11 of 17 passes for 153 yards.

However, the Wildcats were unable to get much going in the run game as they had just 59 yards on the ground and 41 of those came from Moore.

“Spring Hill was very physical and they did a good job of controlling the line of scrimmage,” Harding said. “It was tough for us to get any traction in the run game and that made it pretty difficult on us.”

Defensively, the Wildcats did their best to limit a powerful Spring Hill offense. Louisburg held Spring Hill to just one point off its season low and the Wildcats got a big performance from defensive tackle Brayden Yoder.

Yoder was all over the field as he led the Wildcats with 17 tackles on the night, including eight solo stops. Moore finished with 13 tackles and had six solo tackles.

Hovey was also big on the defensive line for Louisburg as he had 11 tackles, including two for a loss. Lucas Swartz and Erik Lien had eight and six tackles, respectively.

Louisburg will now begin its playoff run Friday as the Wildcats, who earned the No. 2 seed, will host No. 15 Bishop Miege (1-7). Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.

“We are playing on borrowed time right now and nothing is guaranteed,” Harding said. “Our mission from this point forward is just to prepare as best we can during the week and put us in a position to make our season last as long as we possibly can.”

LOU 7 3 3 0 — 13

SH 7 0 7 0 — 14

SCORING SUMMARY

First Quarter

SH: Jordan Miller 7 run (kick good)

L: Ashton Moore 1 run (Blaise Vohs kick)

Second Quarter

L: Blaise Vohs 30 FG

Third Quarter

L: Vohs 26 FG

SH: Patrick Stumpff 3 run (kick good)

STATISTICS

RUSHING — Ashton Moore 15-41; Alex Saad 8-20

PASSING — Alex Saad 11-17-153

RECEIVING — Myles Vohs 7-128; Ashton Moore 2-15; Conlee Hovey 2-10

TACKLES — Brayden Yoder 17, Ashton Moore 13, Conlee Hovey 11, Lucas Swartz 8, Erik Lien 6, Logan Henry 5, Russell Wiseman 2, Myles Vohs 2, Gage Feldkamp 2, Jimmy DeVary 2, Josh Holtzen 1, Bryce Thompson 1, Aiden Kennedy 1.