(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
After coming off a Class 5A championship game appearance, the Ankeny Hawks planned on finishing their 2024 football season at the UNI-Dome.
Things didn’t necessarily end up happening how the Hawks wanted to as their season ended about 83 miles southeast of Cedar Falls in Iowa City, just one game shy of returning to the UNI-Dome.
The eighth-seeded Hawks attempted to go on the road and avenge a close regular season loss at No. 1 Iowa City Liberty, but the Lightning ended Ankeny’s season in the Class 5A quarterfinals by defending their home turf for the second time in a 21-13 win on Friday.
“We didn’t play our best,” said Ankeny coach Jeff Bauer, whose team finished with a 6-5 mark. “I didn’t expect this tonight. Their defense played really well. It’s probably the best game I’ve seen a defense play, and we just didn’t keep drives going enough on offense.”
Despite Liberty (10-1) holding the top seed coming into Friday’s matchup, the Hawks knew they had what it took to compete with the Lightning.
Ankeny suffered a 28-20 loss to then-No. 2 Liberty when the Hawks made the trip out to Iowa City for the first time back on Oct. 11. The Hawks recorded nearly 400 yards offensively, but dropped the game after Liberty scored a go-ahead touchdown, recovered an onside kick, added another score and then intercepted a pass to ice the game.
Following that loss, Ankeny went on a big winning streak that more than secured its spot back in the playoffs.
The Hawks knocked off then-No. 4 Valley in overtime, went on the road and thoroughly dominated Cedar Rapids Washington in a 56-0 blowout to end the regular season, and bulldozed over No. 9 Linn-Mar (Marion), 47-21, in the first round of the playoffs off a stellar game from Daniel Larmie.
Ankeny had some momentum going into Iowa City, but things just didn’t click as well as they did in the games leading up to the rematch in the quarterfinals.
“We felt good coming in,” Bauer said. “We felt we had some things, but it just didn’t materialize for us and couldn’t keep anything going.”
Larmie went on an incredible three-game stretch in which he racked up 492 yards and six touchdowns on 54 carries while averaging 9.1 yards per attempt against Valley, Washington and Linn-Mar.
But between the backfield of Larmie and Caden Henkes, along with quarterback Luke Anderson and his multiple options at receiver, Liberty found all the answers it needed on defense to keep the Hawks just out of it.
Ankeny’s first scoring drive of the game came in response to a 4-yard Lightning touchdown on Liberty’s initial possession.
Larmie picked up a first down on a 6-yard run deep in Lightning territory–and despite a false start that backed them up 5 yards–Anderson connected with junior receiver Owen Fischer for a 17-yard touchdown to tie the game.
The Hawks didn’t score again until the final play of the game. Ankeny got the ball back with under 2 minutes left in a two-possession game, but a little too much time burned off the clock before Anderson hit Evan Irlmeier for a short touchdown as time expired.
Anderson finished with 130 yards through the air on 17-of-27 passing.
“Offensively, we didn’t execute like we should have,” Bauer said.
One of the only other opportunities the Hawks had at points was taken away after a controversial end to the first half.
Trailing 14-7, Anderson attempted to lead the Hawks on a drive in hopes of getting points on the board before the half with the Lightning set to receive the ball to open the third quarter. Anderson hit Fischer for a first down conversion in which it appeared Fischer was ruled to have caught the ball in bounds and tackled out of play, forcing the clock to stop.
But when the ball was placed with kicker Ryan Harrington and the field goal unit trotting out for a potential 53-yard attempt–a distance Harrington has made in the past–the ruling was switched to Fischer being tackled in bounds, which started the clock and the last 4 seconds ticked off before the Hawks could attempt the field goal.
Regardless if the potential field goal would have been good or not, the Hawks were set to trail going into the half and struggled to get the offense going. Larmie was held to 61 yards on 15 carries after rushing for 279 yards and four touchdowns in the win over Linn-Mar.
Ankeny’s defense played a massive role in helping the Hawks have a chance at knocking off the Lightning.
Going into Friday’s game, the high-powered Liberty offense was averaging nearly 43 points per game. The 21 points scored against the Hawks marked the lowest scoring total produced in a game by the Lightning all season, which included the 28 points scored in their one and only loss.
“I thought our defense played their butts off,” Bauer said. “That’s a very good offense that we really held to two (offensive) touchdowns.”
Outside of scoring on fourth-and-goal on its first drive of the game, Liberty added a second touchdown before half when Reece Rettig hit Collin Decker for a 32-yard touchdown pass while facing fourth-and-24.
The Liberty defense essentially iced the game when Dallas Miller intercepted one of Anderson’s passes and returned it 43 yards for a touchdown.
The Lightning will play No. 11 Southeast Polk (7-4) in Friday’s semifinals, while Ankeny now finds itself in a spot where the Hawks will have to fill some big holes on both sides of the ball as they prepare for the 2025 season.
“They’re an awesome group of young men, and I don’t know if I’ll see a senior class like this again,” Bauer said. “They’re high character guys, they’re just good people besides good football players. Football doesn’t define these guys, it’s who they are as people.”
The Hawks will have plenty of core pieces to build around led by Larmie, who rushed for more than 1,100 yards and 11 touchdowns as a junior. Receivers Fischer and Andrew Brandhorst will also be back along with leading tackler Dawson Whitinger and ballhawk Mars Clark.
