Grundy Center, on Gordon's golden boot, upends Wolverines

GRUNDY CENTER – Colin Gordon’s arm put in a lot of work for the Grundy Center offense against Dike-New Hartford on Friday.

But when it came down to the very last second, the Spartans needed his foot.

The experienced kicker delivered, booting a game-winning 19-year field goal with less than one second remaining and elevating Grundy Center to a 17-14 victory over Dike-New Hartford in another Grundy County classic at Spartan Stadium on Friday night.

The Spartans avenged last season’s 13-10 loss at Dike-New Hartford and won their 15th game in a row at home, improving to 2-0 overall on the season.

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Gordon had a hand in all 17 points - the upright-splitter followed two passing touchdowns from Gordon, one each for Tiernan Vokes and Tate Jirovsky.

The junior QB made his first varsity start last week against South Hardin.

“The biggest thing for me was settling down, not trying to do too much, just hitting the quick passes and making smart decisions with the ball,” Gordon said.

Yes, but what about the kick?

“I thought of it like a regular PAT,” said Gordon, who hit two of those on Friday to surpass 100 career point-after kicks made. “Right there in the middle of the field, couldn’t have been better for us. I trusted the guys in front of me and kicked it through.”

The Spartans broke a scoreless tie in the second quarter when Gordon hit Vokes for a 25-yard strike to the end zone and a 7-0 lead with 9:06 left to halftime.

Grundy Center had a chance at extending that lead later in the quarter, but Braxten Johnson picked off Gordon for the second time in the half. Just before halftime, Grundy Center was going to point away to Dike-New Hartford with under a minute left in the half but the punt was mishandled by Gordon and Dike-New Hartford got the ball just outside of the Spartan redzone.

A defensive pass interference call in the final seconds of the half gave D-NH a shot at the end zone, with Benton Bixby finding Jace Hall for a 3-yard lob with zeroes on the scoreboard and knotted the game up 7-all.

Even with that letdown just before halftime, no heads were hanging in the Grundy Center locker room.

“I think they surprised themselves,” Grundy Center head coach Travis Zajac said. “They’re a young team, and playing a game like this against really good competition is going to help us a ton. They weren’t flustered at all, they just continued to grind it out.”

The second half started relatively quiet and a 1-2 Wolverine punch with a Zach Adelmund sack, followed by the Wolverines blocking the punt a play later, set up D-NH at Grundy’s 10-yard line.

Two plays later, Gus Varney was in on a 5-yard score and a 14-7 D-NH lead with 3:27 left in the fourth quarter.

Undeterred, Grundy Center responded with an eight-play, 76-yard drive, featuring a 33-yard third-down conversion reception by Tanner Laube and a fourth-down conversion on the ground for Gordon. One play after that fourth-down chain-mover, Gordon hit Jirovsky with a well-placed 26-yard chuck and after Gordon’s PAT, the game was tied with 11:16 remaining.

The Spartans were able to stop D-NH two more times defensively to set up Grundy Center’s eventual game-winning drive. Senior Patrick Brown III helped the Spartans limit what the dangerous D-NH offense could do.

“Patrick was a freshman when I started here, and when you think about all the extra football he’s played, he’s probably played the equivalent of four seasons of football in three years,” Zajac said. “And it shows, he’s an absolute rock for us and there isn’t anything he hasn’t seen on both sides of the ball.

“I’m so proud of his growth - there have been some really good leaders for us up front and he’s stepped into that role and hasn’t missed a bit. The young kids follow him. And he’s a fantastic player but an even better human being.”

Bixby overshot his target on a third-down heave, intercepted by Laube and setting up Grundy Center’s five-minute grind of the clock.

“We knew they were gonna be big, and they were gonna be physical,” said Brown III of making it happen on offense. “We just had to get underneath them and drive them back as far as we could.”

Right after the interception, Gordon took a shot downfield and found Jirovsky for 44 yards. When the Spartans needed a fourth-down conversion, Jirovsky was there again for nine yards. And Gordon scampered seven yards on third-and-six to set up goal-to-go.

The Spartans went conservative, trying to punch it in three times but ultimately leaving four seconds on the clock for Gordon’s boot.

Long snapper Clay Saak got it to Ben Wegmann the holder, and Gordon’s foot was true. 0.9 seconds remained on the clock, but D-NH couldn’t do anything with Grundy’s resulting squib kick, and the game was over.

D-NH, ranked third in Class 1A in the Radio Iowa poll, fell to 1-1.

“They deserved to win, they played much better than we did,” said D-NH head coach Don Betts. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, because our schedule doesn’t let up at all. … I wasn’t happy with much of anything tonight. We’ll go back to the drawing board and see what we’ve got next week.”

The Spartans stay home to start district play against Wapsie Valley next week.

“This boosts our morale so much,” Brown III said. “This sends us into district play on top of the world right now. We just have to keep putting the pedal to the metal and keep going.”