BETHALTO – On senior night, the Civic Memorial Eagles were looking for their sixth victory to secure a berth in postseason play. It was Nott to be.
Triad’s Trevor Nott opened the game with an 83-yard kickoff return and scored again just before halftime as the Knights built a 16-point lead and hung on for a 30-21 win Friday night in Bethalto. Triad improved to 6-2, secured a playoff spot and moved to 3-2 in the Mississippi Valley Conference. CM dropped to 5-3 overall and 3-2 in the MVC.
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“It was nice to have all of our pieces back,” said Triad head coach Paul Bassler, who benched 14 players last week against Highland for disciplinary reasons. “It was great to see a special teams play. We used to be known for our special teams, but it’s been awhile since we scored a special teams touchdown.”
“We gave up six points right off the bat,” CM head coach Mike Parmentier said. “You can’t do that against a good football team. It seemed like we were on our heels the whole first half. Time of possessions was heavily in their favorable and that’s one of our strengths. Offensively we didn’t do a whole lot and defensively, we were on the field an awfully lot.”
The Eagles offense, at times dominant this year on the ground, struggled early on. CM had only 12 yards of offense in the first quarter and just two first downs in the entire first half.
“They really clogged up the middle and gave us some trouble running the ball,” Parmentier said. “They were stoning us. When you go 3-and-out, and you don’t have the ball, you can’t really see what’s working. We weren’t able to dip into our playbook and do anything.”
Trailing 9-0, CM got it’s only score of the first half when Camryn Gerhardt ran in from 37 yards on a busted play. Gerhardt tried to run around the right end, but was stymied. He eluded two tacklers, reversed field, turned the corner and scampered down the left sideline to cut the lead to 9-7.
Nott’s second score of the game made it 16-7, and Devin Towns’ 27-yard TD run added to the lead. CM then went to the air to get back into the game. Quarterback Brayden Pierce connected with JaQuan Adams for a 31-yard TD and his toss to David Lane completed the 2-point conversion to make it 23-15. CM, which recovered three Triad fumbles in the game, used a turnover to cut deeper into the lead. Pierce scored on a 1-yard quarterback sneak, but the Eagles failed to tie the game on the 2-point conversion. Triad added it’s final TD with just 8 seconds left.
“We spread them out a little bit and started using our short passing game,” Parmentier said. “We had some chances, but a couple of plays didn’t come up our way. I thought our defense played outstanding. We had our opportunities but sometimes you come up short in close games like this.”
CM could still make the playoffs with five wins, but picking up their sixth victory would take the pressure off. The Eagles will have another tough task with their playoff hopes on the bubble when they travel to Taylorville next Friday.
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