Silver Lake 28, Sabetha 7

The Bluejays played exactly the kind of game they wanted to have a chance to beat perrenial power Silver Lake in the second round of the Class 3A playoffs on Saturday night.  Yet, despite playing a hard and physical contests, Sabetha made way too many mistakes to pull off the upset victory.  Silver Lake scored on a 40 yard pass play as time expired in the first half to take a 14-7 lead and then outgained the Jays 188-75 yards in the second have to advance.  

Sabetha failed to recover the opening kickoff at their own 13-yard-line and four plays later a 10 yard touchdown pass from Ryan Matzke to Jace Freeman gave the Eagles the 7-0 lead.  The Bluejays drove 15 plays and 68 yards and then converted a 4th down and 22 play as Kegan Schumann caught a deflected 25 yard TD pass from Brandon Poe to tie the score at 7 with 4:07 left in the opening quarter.  The Jays defensive had second quarter interceptions by Kegan Schumann and Brett Plattner and Sabetha drove to the Eagles 14 yard line but failed to take a lead.  Silver Lake ran six plays in the final 61 seconds of the first half and as the clock expired, Freeman snuck behind the Sabetha secondary and caught an open 40 yard touchdown pass to steal the momentum at intermission.

Besides the opening kick mishap and allowing the hail marry, Sabetha had a running into the punter penalty that kept an Eagle drive alive and also jumped offsides on two different third down and short plays to sustain Silver Lake possessions.  To make matters worse, the Bluejays fumbled away the ball on their final three drives of the game.  The best Sabetha football season since 2008 ended with a record of 8-3 as Coach Garrett Michael fell in his first attempt against his former Silver Lake Coach, CJ Hamilton.  The Bluejays were led by Schumann who had 10 tackles and an interception, 59 yards on 13 rushing attempts, and caught two passes for 56 yards including the lone touchdown to earn "Player to Bank On" honors from the Citizens State Bank and Trust Company in Hiawatha.  Sabetha will graduate 15 seniors from this years team that won seven straight games and finished 6-2 in the Big 7 League.  

Silver Lake improves to 10-1 and will host Wellsville next week.  The Eagles got 97 yards on 25 carries for quarterback, Ryan Matzke, who also completed 13 of 25 passes for 167 yards on 3 scores.  Two went to Freeman who had 68 yards and a 17 yard pass to Kyle Byers with 4:20 left in the game capped the Eagle scoring.  Byers had 69 yards on 6 catches while Cody Renfro added 62 yards rushing and a 13 yard touchdown with 7:11 left in the game to make it 21-7.