Mooseheart's season ends at Milledgeville

Mooseheart's terrific late-season football run came to a virtual and literal halt on Saturday at Milledgeville.

The Ramblers, winners of three straight games in order to qualify for the IHSA Class 1A playoffs found their ground game stopped -- and the host Missiles rolled to a 36-6 opening round victory.

"From the start of the game, we were behind," Mooseheart coach Gary Urwiler said. "We just didn't make plays. We made some mistakes. I thought we made it through the war there for awhile."

Milledgeville (7-3) gained 367 total yards, including 286 on the ground. Numbers like that mirrored the kind of output Mooseheart (6-4) had been turning in late in the season.

Milledgeville took a 14-0 lead by the midpoint of the second half as Mooseheart's offense sputtered. Greg Fredericks scored the Missiles' first TD from inside the 1-yard line while quarterback Kirk Engelkens ran in from 4 yards for the second Milledgeville score.

Kept at bay by penalties and mistakes, Mooseheart's offense rallied at that point for its best drive of the game. A catch by Andy Greenaway for large yardage was followed shortly by a 24-yard touchdown pass from Chris Morones to Floyd Mays.

Although the 2-point conversion failed, the Ramblers were back in the game at 14-6 with 1:01 left in the first half.

What happened next turned the tide of the contest irrevocably in Milledgeville's favor: Jake Workman took the ensuing kickoff, got to the left sideline and raced 84 yards for a touchdown.

"I thought at 14-6, we were back in it," Urwiler said. "We talk about opportunities, and we had an opportunity there to come back into the game. We haven't had a kickoff returned on us all year, and then we had a breakdown in coverage."

The third quarter was scoreless, which worked against Mooseheart's comeback attempts. Milledgeville got its offense rolling again in the fourth quarter. First Engelkens hit Dustin Popejoy for a 24-yard touchdown pass. Workman finished the scoring with a 7-yard run with 4:42 to play.

"I was very happy at first with us containing their quarterback," Urwiler said. "As the game went on, we got desperate and that's why we got in the position we did. Everyone was trying to do just a little bit more, and then you're out of position."