Clark-Willow Lake blanked Groton Area 35-0 on Thursday to end the Tigers’ football season in the first round of the Class 11B playoffs.
The third-seeded Cyclones, 8-1, will host Winner, 6-4 on Thursday. Winner, the 11th seed, upset sixth-seeded Woonsocket-Wessington Springs-Sanborn Central 20-12 in first round action. Groton Area was the 14th seed and ended its season with a 3-6 mark.
“Clark-Willow Lake is a very good football team,” said GA boss Shaun Wanner. “We had to be on our ‘A’ game and had some costly mistakes that C-WL capitalized on in the first half. The kids played hard like usual, and we had a couple red zone looks when we needed to get the ball into the end zone. I’m proud of the effort the boys played with.”
Wanner felt his squad improved throughout the season and said that the 14 seniors on the team will be missed next season.
“We got better every game and continued to play with a lot of energy during the season. We’re going to miss the seniors from both schools; they were great leaders and just an all-around great group of young men. We could have folded the tent a month ago, but this group continued to show up every Monday ready to get after it.
“Even though our record didn’t show it, we had a fun and successful season,” Wanner concluded. “Like I always tell our kids after our final game, life is full of challenges, there will be some tough times in their lives other than winning and losing football games.”
The Cyclones scored with 7:18 remaining in the opening period on a seven-yard run and then ran a fumble back 79 yards to grab a 16-0 lead with 1:44 left in the first stanza. A one-yard scoring run midway through the second quarter put the hosts up 22-0 at halftime. Neither team scored in the third quarter but Clark-Willow Lake scored twice in the final period to put the game away.
C-WL outgained the Tigers 164-76 on the ground, but GA held a 129-101 advantage via the airways. Freshman quarterback Asher Johnson led Groton Area rushers with 58 yards on 18 carries and also hit 10-19 passes. Keegen Tracy had a big night in the receiving department, grabbing eight of those balls for 110 yards.
Tucker Hardy led the GA defensive effort with 10 tackles. Logan Warrington added eight stops, and Conner Glines and Gavin Englund had six each. Each team had just one turnover.
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