Football: Sterling rallies to beat Moline, remain undefeated

By Don Doxsie

Special to SVM

MOLINE – It wasn’t exactly the greatest week for the Moline High School football program.

The Maroons spent the entire week dealing with the firestorm from a controversial hazing incident that occurred last week, then had to take the field Friday night against an undefeated Sterling team.

They very nearly applied some much-needed salve to their wounds by upsetting the Golden Warriors.

Almost.

Sterling rallied from a 21-point first-half deficit with sophomore quarterback Kael Ryan scoring a tying touchdown and running for the winning 2-point conversion with 1 minute, 20 seconds remaining to hand Moline a crushing 36-34 defeat at Browning Field.

Ryan’s 4-yard touchdown run – his fourth of the night – capped a grinding 19-play, 90-yard drive that consumed exactly eight minutes and was done without the use of a pass.

“I’m probably going to have a lot less hair when I’m still talking about that drive years from now,’' Sterling coach Jon Schlemmer said.

Ryan, who rushed for 187 yards in 31 carries and added another 67 yards passing (all before halftime) said he never really was worried, even when the Warriors were on the short end of a 27-6 score in the middle of the second quarter.

“I never at any point count this team out,’' he said. “These guys work so hard and it’s so much fun playing with them. It sucks that I only get to play one more game with them.’'

Sterling (5-0) actually grabbed its first lead in the third quarter when it assembled an 88-yard scoring drive. Senior Jahshawn Howard, who had not carried the ball all night, started that march with runs of 29 and 33 yards, and Ryan finished it with a 7-yard scoring run. He then threw a 2-point conversion pass to Noel Aponte to give the visitors a 28-27 edge.

Moline (1-4) didn’t quit at that point. It started by sacking Ryan to end another long drive.

Junior quarterback Alec Ponder then led a 70-yard march in which he completed passes to Riley Fuller and Jaheim Thornton, then hit Matthew Bailey with a 42-yard strike to give the Maroons a 34-28 lead with 9:20 remaining.

But then the Warriors began their epic drive, doing most of it with 3- and 4-yard chunks before Ryan scampered 32 yards to the Moline 11. Faced with a fourth-down predicament a few plays later, he dropped back to pass, then scrambled around the left side to score.

“I didn’t even see how he got in from where we were,’' Schlemmer said. “It was a called pass, but he scrambled and somehow got in.’'

Antonio Richmond, who earlier returned a kickoff 78 yards for a touchdown, gave Moline some life after that with a determined 31-yard runback, but Ponder was sacked for the only time all night on second down and the Warriors finally stopped the Maroons.

Ponder finished with 16 completions in 34 attempts for 299 yards and four touchdowns. Thornton caught seven passes for 144 yards, and Bailey five for 121. The Maroons’ 34 points were more than Sterling had allowed in all of its first four games combined.

“We had opportunities to win the game on both sides of the ball,’' said Moline coach Mike Morrissey, who said he was forbidden to speak about the hazing controversy.

He pointed to a 22-yard field goal attempt in the third quarter in which the snap was botched, and few dropped passes later in the contest.

“Those are plays we need to make if we’re going to win this game,’' he said. “Our effort was tremendous, but we didn’t take advantage of our opportunities.’'

Moline grabbed the upper hand early, thanks largely to the passing of Ponder, who threw for 197 yards in the first quarter-and-a-half.

Sterling fumbled the ball away on the opening kickoff, and then fumbled again on its second possession, setting up Moline to take the lead on a 25-yard strike from Ponder to Bailey.

The Warriors responded with an 11-play, 79-yard scoring drive that included a 40-yard run by Ryan, who capped the march with a 1-yard burst.

But Richmond picked up a bouncing ball on the ensuing kickoff, paused to check out the landscape, then dashed 78 yards for another touchdown.

The Maroons made it 21-6 when Ponder hit Thornton on an out pattern and he sprinted 81 yards up the sideline as Sterling defender Nate Ottens slipped to the turf.

An 18-yard Ponder-to-Bailey hookup made it 27-6 with 5:33 remaining in the first half.

Sterling responded in a big way, however. Ryan scrambled 25 yards for one touchdown, and with time running out in the half, he threw the ball up for grabs down the left sideline. Two Moline defenders converged on the ball, but Ottens somehow came up with it and stepped into the end zone to make it 27-20 at the intermission.