Grundy Center football controls momentum, beats Saints in first-round playoff

GRUNDY CENTER – The Grundy Center football team kept a handle on the flow of Friday’s first-round playoff game with Saint Ansgar.

The result was a 35-8 washout of the Saints to advance the Spartans forward in the Class A postseason. Grundy Center (8-1) will host Earlham (6-3) in a second-round matchup on Friday, Oct. 29.

“We’re a good football team and we should believe in that,” Grundy Center senior Dexter Whitehill said. “We should believe that if we just keep working together, if we keep grinding, good things are going to happen.”

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No matter what the win-loss record, Saint Ansgar (3-6) is traditionally never a team opposing coaches take lightly, especially coming out of a powerhouse Class A District 2 that included strong teams from Newman Catholic, North Butler, and West Hancock.

“They were moving us up front,” Grundy Center head coach Travis Zajac said. “They’re very prideful and were able to sustain some drives on us.”

The difference maker was how the Spartans’ responded to Saint Ansgar’s potent run offense.

With under a minute left before halftime and a 15-0 lead, Grundy Center kept the Saints scoreless with a turnover on downs just outside of Grundy’s redzone.

St. Ansgar earned another scoring opportunity at the start of the second half, but on 3rd-and-short inside the Grundy 20, a muffed handoff ended up on the ground and in the hands of junior lineman Patrick Brown III.

“I just turned and jumped on it instinctively,” Brown III said. “I think some super-strength kicked in, I grabbed it and wasn’t letting go of it. They were on a long drive and then as soon as you do something like that it really brings them down and gives us all the momentum.”

The Spartans turned it into six on a drive capped by a 27-yard Logan Knaack run.

At the start of the fourth quarter, St. Ansgar got on the board on a pass from Carsen Sparrow to Joey Beyer, and Lorne Isler’s two-point run cut Grundy Center’s lead to 21-8.

After a prolonged sideline conversation, St. Ansgar went out for the ensuing kickoff, with some calls coming from the Spartan sideline to be prepared for an onside kick.

Instead, a short kick ended up in Whitehill’s hands, and the senior found an opening in front of St. Ansgar’s sideline for an 80-yard kickoff return and a return to a three-score lead at 28-8.

“The way it looked to me, I don’t think we quite got our return scheme blocked up,” Zajac said. “But something happened in front of them and [Whitehill] saw it, I give him credit. He turned on the jets and there wasn’t anyone within 20 yards of him, I was proud of the kid.”

The Spartans made one last defensive stop with the Saints in their territory to set up the final scoring drive, with Justin Knaack cashing in a five-minute drive with a two-yard touchdown run.

Knaack was one of several younger Spartans rising to the occasion on Friday night, as Zajac opted to keep Dayne Zinkula on the sideline on Friday to keep the senior’s ankle healthy.

“He was dressed, so we could play him if we needed to,” Zajac said, “but we were playing very well with Clay [Saak] and Justin at that tailback position.”

The Spartan underclassmen got a chance to reiterate to fans that Grundy football will be in good hands in seasons to come.

“We’ve got a solid nucleus in the lower grades that are getting meaningful snaps right now on a really good football team,” Zajac said.

And it all comes back to the Spartan defense under mastermind Chris Conger, which hasn’t allowed more than 10 points to an opponent since the 13-10 loss at undefeated Dike-New Hartford in Week 2 and has outscored the opposition 254-18 since that loss.

“We knew they were going to run the ball, that’s what they do up there. … We just had to win our gaps,” Brown III said of his mindset on the line of scrimmage. “If we do that and the ball bounces outside the linebackers are there to make the play. We all just had to work together.”

Onward to the Round of 16, then, where Grundy could be a top seed in one of the four geographically-organized Class A pods.

The road to the UNI-Dome is well-known by the Spartans at this point - and this year's path could be a little easier on Spartan Nation's gas tanks.

If Grundy Center wins on Friday, they would host the quarterfinal no matter who wins between North Tama and Lynnville-Sully on the other side of Class A Pod 3.

GC 35, SA 8

First quarter

GC--Ben Wegmann 27 pass from Logan Knaack (Colin Gordon kick)

Second quarter

GC--Dexter Whitehill 7 pass from Knaack (Tiernan Vokes pass from Whitehill)

Third quarter

GC--Knaack 27 run (kick missed)

Fourth quarter

SA--Joey Beyer 23 pass from Carsen Sparrow (Lorne Isler run)

GC--Whitehill 80 kickoff return (Gordon kick)

GC--Justin Knaack 2 run (Gordon kick)