With its back against the wall, the Ankeny football team found a way to pull off a huge upset against a familiar opponent.
Luke Anderson fired a 7-yard touchdown pass to Evan Irlmeier with 1 minute 16 seconds left to give the Hawks a 23-16 victory over top-ranked Dowling Catholic on Friday at Ankeny Stadium.
It was the first win of the season for Ankeny (1-2), which also posted a 14-7 triumph over the heavily-favored Maroons in last year’s Class 5A quarterfinals.
“It feels amazing,” said Irlmeier. “This week was pretty hard in practice. We knew we had to come out here and win, and it was the perfect opportunity against the No. 1 team. We just executed.”
Dowling (2-1) drove 68 yards in 15 plays to tie the game in the fourth quarter. Marty Blount kicked a 27-yard field goal to make it 16-16 with 4:05 remaining.
Ankeny then responded with a nine-play, 67-yard drive that potentially saved its season.
“We needed it badly,” said Ankeny coach Jeff Bauer. “We’ve been through a lot. Football is like life–you go through some downs and you try to persevere and get through it, and we’ve been through a lot. We’ve had some heartache and turmoil. (Our) mental toughness showed tonight in the second half.”
Anderson threw a 17-yard pass to Caden Henkes to ignite the winning drive, then later completed tosses of 17 and 26 yards to Irlmeier as the Hawks moved into field goal range. Ryan Harrington had already made three field goals, but Irlmeier said his team was determined to get the ball into the end zone.
“(Dowling) had some time left so we needed a touchdown so that they couldn’t come down and kick a field goal (to tie it),” he said.
On third-and-goal from the Maroons’ 7, Anderson threw a pass in the flat to Irlmeier. He caught the ball at the 2, then fought off a tackle attempt by Dowling’s Joe Shimerdia and lunged across the goal line.
“We were going to run it, but when they put that many (guys) in the box, you have to throw it,” Bauer said. “It doesn’t make any sense to run into a brick wall.”
The Hawks then forced a turnover on downs on the ensuing possession to seal the win. Dowling finished with 352 total yards, but 194 of those came in the first quarter.
“We pretty much did the same things. Everything was just mental,” said Ankeny defensive back LaMarious Clark, who had an interception in the second quarter. “Each and every week we’ve put in the work, even after the losses. We just stayed true to ourselves, and we just believed that we could do it.”
Ankeny took a 7-0 lead just 46 seconds into the game when Anderson found Andrew Brandhorst along the left sideline for a 67-yard touchdown. Anderson completed 17-of-33 passes for 216 yards, while Brandhorst had five catches for 101 yards.
The Maroons answered with a 12-play, 80-yard drive that was capped off by Ra’Shawd Davis’ 20-yard run, but the PAT attempt was no good. Davis finished off another long drive less than 5 minutes later, scoring from 4 yards out to give Dowling a 13-7 lead with 3:31 left in the period.
Davis ran for 74 yards on nine carries in the first quarter alone, but was held to just 51 yards on 21 attempts the rest of the way.
“Our defensive staff did a great job,” Bauer said. “We just started flying to the ball. (Defensive end) Andrew Haase was everywhere tonight.”
After the Maroons turned the ball over on downs midway through the second quarter, Ankeny started its next drive with three straight carries by Daniel Larmie, who ran 26 times for 135 yards. He later had a 14-yard run to set up a 44-yard field goal by Harrington with 3:33 to go until halftime.
“The run game was looking good,” Irlmeier said. “Larmie was getting some (yards) and Henkes had some, too. It was just an all-around team win.”
Three plays later, Clark picked off a pass from Dowling quarterback Parker DePhillips at midfield. It was his second interception of the season.
“It was a great play call by my coach,” Clark said. “I did everything he told me to do, and I just made a play.”
That led to an 18-yard field goal by Harrington that tied the game at 13-13 with 5 seconds left in the half.
“Obviously, the pick was big, and the fourth-down stop was huge,” Bauer said. “That kind of kept us in it.”
After forcing a punt to begin the second half, Ankeny drove 36 yards in 12 plays to set up Harrington’s go-ahead 41-yard field goal with 6:38 left in the third quarter.
“I have a lot of confidence just because I’ve put in a lot of work in the offseason,” said Harrington. “I became a lot better kicker, and another thing is that I’m handling adversity a lot better. I’m very composed under pressure, which is a lot better than last year.”
The two teams then traded defensive stops until early in the fourth quarter, when Dowling embarked on its long drive to tie the game. But the Maroons left too much time on the clock.
“This feels really good,” Harrington said. “That was a really tough loss (at Southeast Polk) last week, but we learned from it and we just became a lot better in practice and it really showed today.”
Bauer said his team rebounded from a subpar practice earlier in the week.
“I had a feeling tonight that we were ready to play,” he said. “We know what we’ve been through, and we’ve played tough teams. We’ve had a tough schedule, but we’ve gotten better and we just had to keep doing that.”
Ankeny will play at Johnston on Friday. The Dragons (1-2) are coming off a 34-24 loss at Valley.
