Comets strike early but Lions rule the night in 56-7 football finale win

By John Burbridge

sports@charlescitypress.com

CHARLES CITY — With Halloween still on the horizon, it sure had been a frightful week for the Charles City Comets and their fans.

First, there was the Phantom Hand in the Net call that negated a match-winning point for the vanquished CC volleyball team in the regional semifinal last Thursday (there’s video evidence of this phantom).

And then on the following night, an evil-shaded yellow cloth materialized near midfield like a hand out of a grave threatening to seize one of greatest moments of the season for the Comet football team and drag it down into oblivion like it never happened.

Hosting the heavily favored and playoff-bound Clear Lake Lions during their “Senior Night” which also represented their final game of the season, the Comets opted to open up their playbook on the first snap of the game.

Charles City senior quarterback Jordan Foster swung a lateral pass to junior halfback Kaden Liddleton, who reared back and threw a perfect 40-yard-plus spiral through the air to Keenan “Petey” Wiley in stride for an 83-yard catch-and-run touchdown.

Bedlam ensued along the home team side of Comet Field, especially from the festive student section. But … forgive me reader as I promise this is the last time using this phrase … not so fast.

The foreboding flag appeared out of thin air — like conjured up by an evil magician.

In the end, the flag itself was declared a phantom — eventual ruling was that there was no penalty on the play — making this ghost story one with a good result as bedlam resumed with the Comets taking a 7-0 lead in less than 20 ticked  seconds over the visibly stunned Lions.

The play — Wiley’s eighth TD catch of the season — made him Charles City’s all-time leader in receiving yards amassed during a single season. With 98 yards on three catches on the night, Wiley’s lone senior-total with the Comets (615 yards) on 37 catches passed Shane Feller (541), Erich Feller (554), Jeff Hartman (560) and Nick Watson (568).

Though we should probably note here if we hadn’t already that the Lions won big — CLEAR LAKE 56, CHARLES CITY 7 — the first-blood, record-breaking scoring play wasn’t the only inspirational highlight of the evening for the Comets and their fans.

After Clear Lake responded to tie on the ensuing possession, an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Charles City allowed the Lions to kickoff in Comet territory at the 45-yard line. That’s when the Lions singled out Charles City’s lone female varsity player, Leah Stewart, who was on the front line of the kickoff receiving team.

Though football has installed “targeting” personal-foul penalties in the name of player safety, there is no rule to prevent front-line kickoff return team players from being targeted with hard-to-handle onside kicks, making them vulnerable to hard-sprinting shots from unblocked opponents.

Stewart was able to field the onside kick and paid the price while sustaining a resounding hit. But she secured possession of the ball while giving the Comets their best starting field position of the game.

As one might expect from the aforementioned score, the Lions have some playmakers themselves. And after getting burned on the first play of the game and failing to intimidate Stewart, the Lions seemed to get more ferocious and were able to initiated a running clock before halftime after scoring 28 points in the second quarter.

“We just couldn’t get a stop,” Charles City head coach Bryan Bjorklund said after Clear Lake scored on all of its possessions, including Blake Enke’s fourth-and-goal 1-yard run that capped the scoring with Kinnick Clabaugh’s eighth PAT kick of the game — the Comets were itching for a goal-line stand for an elusive turnover on downs.

“We would make plays to put them in (long-yardage) situations, then they would slip away from us with a big play,” said Bjorklund, whose team finished the season at 3-6.

Clear Lake (8-1) was led by senior quarterback Cael Stephany, who completed 8 of 11 passes for 106 yards and four TDs. His favorite target was junior tight end Thomas Meyer, a four-star college prospect big target who makes himself bigger with his “jump-ball” catches. Meyer caught TD passes of 19-, 13- and 5-yards.

Junior running back Titan Schmitt had 207 yards on 16 carries, and scored three times including a 67-yard run for the Lions, who will host Bishop Heelan (8-1) in the first round of the Class 3A playoffs next Friday (Oct. 27).

Playing his final football game of his high school career, Comet senior cornerback Josiah Cunnings posted game-high totals in total tackles (11.5) and solo tackles (8) — more than half touchdown-saving.

Sophomore Deacon Caspers was credited with 2.5 tackles for loss; senior Micah Hillman had 3 solo tackles with one going for a loss, and a pass defended; junior Kamden Meek had 4 solo tackles with one going for a loss; senior Keegan Bollman and junior Jackson Ruzicka each had 5 total tackles; and senior Carter Burkhardt had a tackle for a loss for the Comets.

After Charles City defeated Mason City during the Comets’ homecoming, CC had a 3-1 record. Bjorklund, who came to Charles City after serving as an assistant coach at Mason City, cited the victory over the Class 4A school during his season-ending speech as a sign of progress in the program and acknowledged the graduating seniors for their influencial roles in this upgrade.

But after the win over the Riverhawks, Charles City was thrown to the Lions, Wildcats, Bulldogs … the Class 3A-District 2 portion of the schedule featuring a buzzsaw slate of ranked and near-ranked opponents — Clear Lake got as high as No. 2 before being humbled by Humboldt (34-0) the Friday before facing the Comets.

“Going into this week, everyone in our district except us was still in the running to make the playoffs,” Bjorklund said. “And a lot of those teams have guys coming back.

“Our district is tough, and it’s not going to get much easier.”

One noticeable improvement for the Comets this season was their installed no-huddle offense. Under this new system, Charles City was consistently able to get plays off in a more-timely manner while allowing the Comets more time to better size-up and read their opponents across the line of scrimmage before the snap. The result was a more-balanced attack consisting of 1,000 yards both in passing and rushing this season, fewer penalties and — perhaps most importantly — fewer turnovers.

After a tough junior campaign, much-improved senior quarterback Jordan Foster at times thrived in the no-huddle offense, which yielded more TD passes (11) than interceptions (10).

“It’s something we’re going to build on,” Bjorklund said. “We plan on going to team camps during the offseason that specialize in the no-huddle … learn some new things

“We’re going to lose some key players, like ‘Petey’ (Wiley), but our freshman team finished with a winning record … they just beat these guys (Clear Lake) today, and we were able to play six junior varsity games this season. That’s huge. A lot of our younger players got a lot of playing time this season.”

CLEAR LAKE 56, CHARLES CITY 7

Scoring By Quarters

Clear Lake 14 28 7 7 — 56

Charles City 7 0 0 0 — 7

Scoring Summary

CC — Keenan Wiley 83-yard pass from Kaden Liddleton (Jack Hanson kick) 11:43 1st, 7-0

CL — Titan Schmitt 29-yard run (Kinnick Clabaugh kick) 8:08 1st, 7-7

CL — Sam Dodge 44-yard pass from Cael Stephany (Clabaugh kick) 3:22 1st, 14-7

CL — Thomas Meyer 19-yard pass from Stephany (Clabaugh kick) 8:21 2nd, 21-7

CL — Schmitt 67-yard run (Clabaugh kick) 4:42 2nd, 28-7

CL — Schmitt 5-yard run (Clabaugh kick) 3:32 2nd, 35-7

CL — Meyer 13-yard pass from Stephany (Clabaugh kick) 2:10 2nd, 42-7

CL — Meyer 5-yard pass from Stephany (Clabaugh kick) 5:00 3rd, 49-7

CL — Blake Enke 1-yard run (Clabaugh kick) 2:30 4th, 56-7

RECORDS — Clear Lake 8-1, Charles City 3-5