Devyn Kennedy, Earlville top Indian Creek for 4th straight Little Ten title

WATERMAN – Indian Creek and Earlville played Thursday for the Little Ten Conference tournament title, and after a first half goal by the Raiders, the Timberwolves wasted little time tying the match at 1-all in the second half.

But Earlville wasted even less time taking control of the match for good in a 4-1 win over Indian Creek in the championship game at Pack Park.

Bryar Keller knocked in a shot off a corner kick with 35:36 left to put the Raiders (10-1) ahead, 2-1, after the Timberwolves (12-1-1) had knotted it up at 1 barely two minutes earlier.

“That was one thing teams I’ve had in the past have done well at, and this year we kind of struggled with,” Earlville coach Larry Heiden said. “I was really glad, especially Devyn [Kennedy, who scored three times, our forward, you could tell he was fine. We had a couple players you could see get down on themselves.

“But you watch Devyn, he puts you on his shoulders, and I think responding was important. For a good two-minute stretch afterward, they had all the momentum.”

The win was the fourth straight LTC tournament title for the Raiders, who avenged an earlier loss to the Timberwolves from earlier this season.

Indian Creek coach Eric Schrader said the Timberwolves felt they had the momentum after the goal from Drew Gaston, who got free in front of a couple of Earlville defenders on a feed from Cam Russell.

“We looked pretty fired up like we were ready to go,” Schrader said. “I thought momentum was going our way.”

But he said the team gave that momentum back. Shortly before the goal, Russell picked up a yellow card and was off the field for the corner kick.

Schrader said Russell is one of the team’s best defenders in that situation.

“They got frustrated at times with things not going their way,” Schrader said. “We’ve had such a good year with everything usually going our way that frustration kind of boiled over at times, and that got to us. We hadn’t really been in those positions this year.”

The loss still capped one of the best seasons in IC history, having won the regular-season Little 10 Conference title a year after winning a regional. There’s no postseason this year with Thursday’s match the finale for both teams.

Schrader said it’s even more impressive that when this current group of seniors were freshmen they went 6-15.

“We literally went from the bottom of the conference to the top,” Schrader said. “We won a regional last year. We obviously don’t get a chance to do that this year, but they’ve accomplished a lot.”

Schrader said it was unfortunate there would be no postseason this year.

“It was a weird feeling going into this one knowing it was the last one,” Schrader said. “Usually you don’t get that unless you’re in the state championship or third-place game. This is it, no matter what happens.”

The Raiders started the scoring in the 6th minute on a goal by Kennedy, assisted by Connor Cook. Cook started in the Earlville half of the field and ran past a couple IC players. The ball eventually was deflected away from him, but it continued up field toward Kennedy, who knocked it in.

Kennedy added a goal in the 63rd minute and a final insurance goal with 5:13 left.

“As a coach you don’t get many players like that,” Heiden said. “It was amazing. He was everywhere. He was a pest to them. They couldn’t do what they wanted to do with him. Instead of getting upset he kept his head and kept us going.

“When you have great players like that it’s hard to lose.”

Heiden felt like in the Raiders’ 4-3 loss earlier this year to the Timberwolves the team let one get away.

“We played them earlier this year, and they came out on top,” Heiden said. “They’re such a really good team, but we felt like the first time we outplayed them, outpassed them, outshot them. But there’s only one stat that matters in the end, and that’s where they beat us.”

But that gave them confidence coming in and led to the win Thursday, he said.

“We know we let one slip away the first time,” Heiden said. “We knew that we really had to go out with that confidence. And here’s the thing, in my opinion, they played better today than when they beat us. They played awesome, they possessed the ball. I knew if we kept the ball from their four offensive players we’d be fine, and that’s what we accomplished.”