(Story by Gabe Ploeger)
Late into the fourth quarter, in the moment where it mattered most, the Ankeny Hawks secured their ticket to the quarterfinals of the Class 5A football playoffs.
With only 2 minutes to go, the Hawks held a 14-9 lead over visiting Johnston and had the ball at the Dragons’ 32-yard line, but faced a crucial third down. All they needed was the first down and then they could run the clock down, but they had other plans.
Quarterback Luke Anderson found wide receiver Devon Akers for a touchdown pass that clinched a 21-9 victory. The Hawks avenged last year’s quarterfinal loss to Johnston.
“If a team only puts one person on Akers, you have to throw it,” said coach Jeff Bauer, whose team defeated the Dragons for the second time this season. “You could be the best DB in the world, but he’s not 6-6 and a half and he’s not going to go up and catch it over Devon.”
Johnston (5-5) still had time for an improbable comeback, but the Hawks (7-3) refused to give their CIML Conference rival any breathing room. With under a minute left, Akers rose up and intercepted a pass from Will Nuss, putting an exclamation mark on the win.
“I was hyped celebrating with my teammates, but if it wasn’t for the O-line and the run game all night, this game was won in the trenches,” said Akers. “It’s always hard to beat a team twice, but we knew what we had to do to get the job done, and we did it.”
It was in the trenches where running back Caden Henkes ran for 195 yards and a pair of touchdowns on 35 carries. Henkes scored on a 20-yard run in the first quarter after Manning Allen recovered a Johnston fumble, setting a tone for the game.
“It’s definitely a mental thing, more mental than it is physical,” Henkes said on preparing for a heavy workload in the cold and windy conditions. “We just came into the game as a team and we were just mentally stronger than our opponent.”
Henkes also had five catches for 37 yards, but the offense wasn’t the only bright side. The defense came up huge on several occasions.
Johnston barely even reached 100 total yards of offense in the game. Numerous three-and-outs as well as two stopped fourth-down attempts helped get the offense back out onto the field.
Johnston did manage to get on the board as D’Angelo Barkue scored on a 1-yard run, and the Dragons trailed by just 14-9 in the fourth quarter. However, with 3:33 left in the game, Johnston started taking shots down the field and it proved to be costly as cornerback Jacob Mohrfeld came up with a big interception.That eventually led to Akers’ tremendous scoring catch, his eighth of the season. He finished with three receptions for 60 yards.
“We were battle-tested,” said Bauer, whose team had posted a 16-10 win over the Dragons on Sept. 15. “Anyone that looks at our schedule knows that we didn’t have three or four breathers (between games) like other teams did. We’ve had tough games every week. The season prepared us for this game.”
Ankeny will play No. 2 Dowling Catholic (9-1) in the quarterfinals on Friday at Williams Stadium. The Maroons advanced with a 45-0 triumph over Sioux City East.
Dowling handed the Hawks one of their three losses, 35-14, on Sept. 8.
“We’ll do what we’ve been doing all year,” Bauer said. “They know how to come back and get to work. It’s not going to be anything different. We had a great week in practice last week, and I’m sure we’ll do it again this week. We’ve got one more week together, and it’s just a lot of great kids.”
