CARROLLTON – It’s no secret that the way last season ended left a bad taste for the Carrollton Hawks football team. After starting the season 5-0 and earning playoff eligibility, things went South fast, with a 61-0 loss at Calhoun being the season's turning point.
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The Hawks then finished 0-5, going out in the first round of the playoffs.
With those thoughts in the back of their minds, Carrollton hosted the Warriors on a warm, October Saturday afternoon and came out the other side with a hard-fought 10-0 win.
An emotional Rodney Flowers gave a speech to his team postgame talking about how much the win meant.
“It does, especially after last season,” the head coach said. “We respect Calhoun, we respect their program and what they’ve done to turn the corner, but last year just didn’t sit right. We went over there, and 61-0 has never happened in our program.”
“The kids didn’t like the way it felt all offseason and that’s what we said,” Flowers continued. “We’ve got to fix that and never allow that to happen again and that’s what we did. We fixed everything, came in with a good game plan and they believed in it and executed it.”
That game plan was a defensive-minded one and one with a simple goal, stop Calhoun’s run game.
The Warriors came into Saturday’s matchup averaging 336 yards per game on the ground and having not fumbled the ball while on offense.
That last stat changed drastically.
Calhoun fumbled the ball 12 times with Carrollton coming up with it half the time on Saturday.
Carrollton opened the game with the ball at its 20-yard line and went three-and-out. Calhoun took over at its 35, but a few plays later, Carrollton recovered a fumble at the 50, before another quick three-and-out.
After a good punt from Lucas Howard, Calhoun was pinned down at its five-yard line. Still, the Warriors marched up to half field where they were met with a 4th-and-2 situation at the 50. A short run moved the chains but then came another fumble, recovered by the Hawks.
Carrollton took over at its 47-yard line and later also had to convert on a 4th-and-2 scenario at Calhoun’s 38. The Hawks went for it and got it as the first quarter ended.
A facemask called against Calhoun moved the ball down to the 11-yard line with a fresh set of downs. After some tries for the endzone, the Hawks had to settle for a field goal, one that Howard drilled to make it 3-0.
When Calhoun got the ball back, it began from its 30-yard line and went three-and-out thanks to an untimely offside call.
The Hawks took over, but not for long as Carrollton quarterback Eli Flowers threw an interception to Calhoun’s Patrick Friedel. He ran it back to the Carrollton 38-yard line, a situation that soon turned into 4th-and-2 at the 30. Jack Webster ran it for the first down before Carrollton’s Avery Banghart came up with another fumble recovery.
Carrollton’s defense was stepping up big time, but for the time being, its offense wasn’t taking advantage of any of those situations. That was until the final drive of the half.
Calhoun took over at its 31 before Howard recovered yet another fumble for the Hawks. That drive led to first and goal from the eight with time winding down in the half.
With three seconds left on the clock, Flowers found Charlie Stumpf with an eight-yard touchdown pass. After the extra point from Howard, the Hawks took a 10-0 lead into the locker room.
“I’m proud of our offense, just capitalizing right before halftime is huge,” coach Flowers said. “That shows what kind of grit these kids have and I’m proud of them.”
Not much to report from the second half other than Carrollton’s defense standing tall and its offense doing what it needed to wind down the clock.
For Flowers and the Hawks, they knew exactly what they were getting from Calhoun.
“When you look at their offense, we have a lot of film and we’ve seen them in person, and [Connor] Longecker’s their key,” Flowers said. “We figured 80 percent was going to Longnecker, so let’s attack him, let’s take risks, and make them do some things that they don’t want to do. We said if we hit some mesh points and cause some turnovers, then we could be in this game.”
Longnecker came in averaging 158 yards rushing and having scored a team-high 11 touchdowns. He didn’t get much on Saturday as wherever he went, he was typically surrounded by a sea of green jerseys trying to bring him down.
After a wild weekend in the Western Illinois Valley Conference, there is now a three-way tie in the South with Carrollton, Calhoun, and Greenfield all sitting at 5-1 on the season and 3-1 in the WIVC.
Calhoun is ranked at No. 3 in this week’s Associated Press state poll with Greenfield at No. 9. In the WIVC North, Camp Point Central is ranked No. 5 in IHSA Class 1A.
The Cougars are 5-1 on the season, with week two's 14-13 loss in Calhoun being its only blemish, however, they are 4-0 in the WIVC North. CPC narrowly beat Jacksonville Rout 22-21 on Saturday.
A win over Calhoun might be enough for the Hawks to jump into the rankings, if not a win on the road at Greenfield next week certainly would.
But the Hawks aren’t worried about rankings, only one thing at this point.
“Right now it’s a three-way tie all at 5-1. If we can go and beat Greenfield, we’ll win the South which we haven’t done since 2021. That’s been our goal and that’s what we’re going to try to do,” Flowers said.
Calhoun will host Pleasant Hill (2-4) on Friday for its final conference game.
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