ST. JOSEPH – A 42-14 loss does not usually have a head football coach feeling proud of his players.
However, given the circumstances, Paxton-Buckley-Loda head coach Josh Pritchard felt his team earned a sort of moral victory after losing by that exact margin to St. Joseph-Ogden.
After all, his team played with a fourth-string quarterback and multiple new starters in different positions and went up against the fourth-ranked Class 3A team.
“I can’t tell you how proud I am of these kids. Our kids were flying around,” Pritchard said. “This is the hardest our kids had played since Week 6. We had a lot of injuries today. We had kids gut it out. We were hitting people.”
Though the loss was PBL’s third in a row, the Panthers enter the playoffs with a 6-3 record.
“I still think 6-3 is a pretty darn good season,” Pritchard said.
With 10:59 left in the first quarter, Coy Taylor scampered for a 44-yard touchdown to put SJO up 7-0.
On the second play of PBL ensuing possession, Robert Boyd-Meents scampered for what would have been a 71-yard gain to put the ball on the 2-yard line. However, PBL was called for a holding penalty.
After PBL punted, SJO (9-0, 8-0 Illini Prairie Conference) went 55 yards on 12 plays, including a tackle for loss by Carson Goss on a first-and-goal from the 15-yard line. Tim Blackburn-Kelley caught an 8-yard touchdown pass from Kodey McKinney on fourth-and-goal from the 8-yard line with 5:29 left in the first quarter.
From there, PBL (5-3 IPC) went on a scoring drive of its own.
From the Panthers’ 25-yard line, Boyd-Meents gained two yards on a run before Sam Hall connected with Tyler Cole caught a pass for 18 yards. Mason Vaughan scampered for nine yards before Cole ran for a first down on second-and-1.
After PBL was called for a holding penalty on a Boyd-Meents run on the next play, a Wesslund catch and hook-and-ladder to Cole, plus a personal-foul penalty on SJO, moved the ball to the Spartans’ 20-yard line.
Two Boyd-Meents runs moved the ball seven yards before a run by Vaughan tallied one yard. On fourth-and-2, Cole scampered for a 17-yard touchdown run with 8.2 seconds left in the first quarter.
Hall found Vaughan in the end zone on the ensuing two-point conversion try to cut PBL’s deficit to 14-8.
After Blackburn-Kelley caught a 12-yard touchdown pass with 10:25 left in the second quarter, PBL neared the red zone on its ensuing possession.
From the Panthers’ 20-yard line, Cole caught a pass for nine yards before Vaughan caught a third-and-7 pass to move the ball to the PBL 38-yard line. After Vaughan caught a pass for nine yards on second-and-12, PBL was called for a 15-yard personal foul on third-and-3.
Hall then found Boyd-Meents on third-and-18 to move the ball to SJO’s 45-yard line before Boyd-Meents scampered for another first down on third-and-6 three plays later.
“Robert ran really hard,” Pritchard said.
Boyd-Meents caught a screen pass for four yards before Vaughan was stopped for no gain on second down. Boyd-Meents gained four yards on third-and-6 before PBL was called for a 5-yard penalty on fourth-and-2.
Boyd-Meents was stopped short of the first-down marker on a toss to the right side, giving SJO the ball back on its own 26-yard line.
After Tanner Siems caught a pass on second-and-11 to move the ball to the SJO 42-yard line, Matt Suaava sacked McKinney for a loss of seven yards. On the next play, a hook-and-ladder to Blackburn-Kelley moved the ball to PBL’s 40-yard line.
Three plays later, Wyatt Wertz scored on a 14-yard run to extend SJO’s lead to 28-8 with 52.5 seconds left in the second quarter.
The Panthers had the ball to start the second half.
On the first play of that possession, an interception by Siems was waved off due to a roughing the passer penalty that moved the ball to the Spartans’ 47-yard line. On a third-and-20 from PBL’s own 42-yard line, Sawyer Floyd caught a pass along the left sideline to move the ball to the SJO 15-yard line.
“I think that might have been his first catch in his career,” Pritchard said.
On the next play, Cole scored his second touchdown of the game via a 15-yard run with 10:17 left in the third quarter.
“I guess I didn’t give Tyler Cole the ball enough at running back,” Pritchard said. “Robert had some great kick-out blocks, and everybody knows he’s a really big dude for us. Tyler Cole ran really hard.”
After forcing the Spartans to punt, PBL took over on its own 30-yard line before a second-and-6 run by Vaughn moved the ball six yards and a run by Boyd-Meents moved it to SJO’s 48-yard line.
However, Kyler Swanson intercepted a pass on fourth-and-6 to give SJO the ball back on its own 40-yard line. From there, Wertz scored on a 25-yard touchdown run with 3:59 left in the third quarter.
Boyd-Meents returned the ensuing kickoff to the Spartans’ 45-yard line before a pass interference penalty moved the ball to the 20-yard line. However, after a Boyd-Meents run went for a loss of two yards and PBL was called for two false starts, two incomplete passes forced the Panthers to punt.
Wertz then scored on a 41-yard touchdown with 14.7 seconds left in the third quarter to make the score 42-14.
“I am so proud of these kids. It’s unbelievable. I know moral victories don’t mean much, but now we’re all 0-0. We’ll see what our playoff draw looks like,” Pritchard said. “We had bodies laying on the ground cramping. We had kids going into positions they haven’t played a lot.”
The Panthers will find out who they are playing in the playoffs as the IHSA holds its playoff pairings show at 8 p.m. Saturday. Pritchard said he is hoping to get Bryar Cosgrove, Kayden Vance and Ethan Williams, among others, healthy for the first round of the playoffs.
“We’re really hopeful that we’ll get as many of them back for next week as we can,” Pritchard said. “We’re really excited about that.”
St. Joseph-Ogden 42, PBL 14
PBL 8 0 6 0 — 14
SJO 14 14 14 0 — 42
Scoring summary
SJO – Taylor 44 run (Schmitz kick).
SJO – Blackburn-Kelley 8 pass from McKinney (Schmitz kick).
PBL – Cole 17 run (Vaughan pass from Hall).
SJO – Blackburn-Kelley 12 pass from McKinney (Schmitz kick).
SJO – Wertz 14 run (Schmitz kick).
PBL – Cole 15 run (pass failed).
SJO – Wertz 25 run (Schmitz kick).
SJO – Wertz 41 run (Schmitz kick).