Orangeville ends Amboy-LaMoille’s magical run in 8-man semifinal

AMBOY – The nose of the football was so close to the goal line in the third quarter Saturday that a stiff wind probably could have nudged it across for a touchdown.

Yet, the Amboy-LaMoille Clippers couldn’t use the wind as they approached the line of scrimmage on fourth down, and they needed that last inch to take an improbable lead over Orangeville in a semifinal of the Illinois eight-man football playoffs.

After being stuffed on consecutive plays up the middle, the Clippers tried a fake, but as quarterback Tucker Lindenmeyer pulled the ball away and made to bootleg around the tackle, his foot caught a teammate’s foot and he tumbled to the ground to end the scoring threat.

Orangeville responded with a long touchdown drive and never looked back in a 34-12 win over the Clippers. Orangeville (11-1) advances to play Polo in the eight-man state championship game Friday night at Monmouth College.

“We were trying to run a 23-bootleg,” Lindenmeyer said. “They were keeping pressure in the middle and they thought we were going to run a dive. So, we faked the handoff, and tried to throw it to [Brennan] Blaine, but I just tripped on someone.”

The Clippers had taken possession after Orangeville fumbled on its own 15-yard line. Tough running by Kye Koch, Dylan Daniels and Jordan Gulley helped set up the ball at the 2-yard line on second down with Amboy (7-5) trailing by a point at 13-12.

But the inability to convert the touchdown turned into a huge momentum change.

“Absolutely huge,” Orangeville coach Bill Meier said. “Absolutely turned the game around, and not only to have the goal-line stand, but to turn around and have a 100-yard drive, that killed them.”

A pair of runs by quarterback Carson Rote got the Broncos (11-1) out of the shadow of the end zone, then workhorse running back Gunar Lobdell gained a total of 22 yards on the next three runs. Lobdell, a 6-foot, 180-pound senior, rushed 36 times for a total of 224 yards, increasing his season output to 2,264 yards.

“It takes a team,” Lindenmeyer said of trying to stop Lobdell. “Not one person can stop him. We just had to swarm the ball and wrap up.”

With the Clippers focusing on Lobdell it opened up things for his teammates, most notably speedy senior Brayden Cahoon, who took a sweep around end for 58 yards for a touchdown. He also ran in the 2-point conversion, putting Orangeville up 21-12 with 3:02 left in the third quarter.

“Gunar’s pretty good,” Meier said, “but we have some other guys that are pretty good. If you’re going to take away him, that just leaves some of our other options to make some plays.”

After a three-and-out, Orangeville put the game away with a 13-play, 80-yard drive that ate up nearly eight minutes of clock. Lobdell capped the drive with a 39-yard touchdown run, then he capped the scoring minutes later on a 7-yard run after Lindenmeyer was intercepted for the second time.

The Clippers answered big plays by Orangeville in the first half with big plays of their own. After falling behind 7-0 on a 41-yard TD run by Lobdell, Amboy answered with a 60-yard touchdown pass from Lindenmeyer to Brennan.

The two connected again in the second quarter for a 15-yard touchdown. Lindenmeyer finished with 97 passing yards on five completions.

“We just needed to do our jobs,” Meier said. “The one they hit, we had a kid fall down. It was kind of sloppy for both teams, and they had some kids go down, and that happens. We were there, we fell down and they scored. Lining up faster and seeing what formation they were in much quicker in the second half was key. Half of defense is lining up right, and once you line up right, you have to execute.”

The loss capped a magical run for Amboy, which entered the playoffs with a 5-4 record and had lost to Orangeville 55-6 in Week 8 before pulling off upsets over Aquin and Milledgeville in the first two rounds of the playoffs.

“That’s a good football team over there,” Meier said. “They had us on our heels at halftime, and we were able to get inside and talk about some things and regroup and refocus.”

“Starting this season, we didn’t think we’d come this far at all,” Lindenmeyer said. “We’ve been 1-8 the past how many seasons. We had always been on losing teams, so no one had much confidence in us. Coming into the playoffs 5-4, I mean, we had nothing to lose. So, we just played our best and got to the semifinals. It’s a big accomplishment.”