Local Sports

Down to the final play: Ishpeming comes up a yard short, falls to Pickford in regional final

PICKFORD -- Ishpeming was a yard away from, at worst, sending its eight-player Division 1 regional championship football game to overtime on Friday.

Instead, time curiously ran out before the Hematites could run a final play, allowing host Pickford to escape with a 28-22 victory and a tough-to-swallow way to end the season for the team from Marquette County.

"We knew coming in Pickford is a great program," Ishpeming head coach Mike Lyman said. "(They're a) big, physical program with a lot of juniors and seniors."

The Panthers scored a go-ahead touchdown with exactly one minute remaining. The Hematites, with the aid of a Panthers' penalty, quickly worked their way down the field in the closing seconds, thanks to a mix of passing and rushing by Kian Gauthier.

With about 10 seconds left, and facing a 2nd-and-2 at the Pickford 4-yard line, Gauthier rolled out and completed a pass to Derek Meyer. Meyer picked up the first down, but was tackled at the 1-yard line with the clock reading around 3 seconds.

The clock never stopped after the first down, however, allowing time to run out before Ishpeming could get a final play off. The officials met briefly after the play, but opted to not put any time back on the clock, leading to the Panthers' win and a whole bunch of frustration on the Ishpeming side of the field.

"It was a first down, so the clock should have stopped and the clock never stopped," Lyman said. "That's all I can tell you, I don't know why there wasn't three seconds left on the clock.

"The refs wouldn't give me an explanation, I was trying to talk to them as they were walking off, but they wouldn't give me an explanation; that's really all I can say."

Aside from the game-ending controversy, it was a fun battle between two rugged Upper Peninsula teams with the regional trophy on the line.

Defense shined for both sides in the first half, with it nearly going scoreless into the break before Pickford got across the goal line on a 76-yard touchdown run from Mason Andrzejak with 1:03 to play in the second quarter. Andrzejak also ran in the 2-pointer to make its lead 8-0 at halftime.

Ishpeming found its offense in the second half. Gauthier and Meyer took turns running the ball, picking up chunks of yardage on their way down the field.

A Gauthier 4-yard TD run and Meyer 2-pointer tied the game 8-8 with 6:06 left in the third.

Andrzejak broke free for an 80-yard scoring run on the first play of the Panthers' ensuing possession, putting them ahead 14-8, but the Hematites responded with two straight scores. Meyer rushed in for a 3-yarder late in the third, then Gauthier followed that with a 2-pointer to give Ishpeming a 16-14 advantage entering the fourth.

Meyer scored again with 10:53 remaining on a 37-yard rush to put Ishpeming in front 22-14 after a failed 2-point conversion.

But Pickford scored twice in the final six minutes, both coming on fourth-down passing plays. Carter Rye connected with Carter Yiirs for a 25-yard TD with 5:46 to go, tying it at 22-22, with Rye tossing what proved to be the game winner to Andrzejak with the 60 ticks left.

"I think we let this one slip away from us a little bit," Lyman said. "I think it was a winnable game, I think we could have won, I can't say we should have won, but we could have won and just let it get out of our fingers a little bit."

Gauthier finished with 191 yards and a TD on 31 rush attempts, while he was 4 of 7 passing for 45 yards. Meyer ran 31 times for 161 yards and two scores and added three receptions for 20 yards. Cullen Gaboury had one reception for 22 yards and Donavan Snyder one grab for nine yards. Gauthier also had one interception while playing defense.

Andrzejak had a huge game for the Panthers; running 20 times for 216 yards and two TDs as he also had the late 23-yard scoring reception.

The Hematites finish the season at 8-3, a vast improvement from last year's two-win campaign. With a young roster this fall, things should only continue to trend up for them.

"We're still young, (the message is) for these kids to keep stepping up and climbing the mountain," Lyman said. "I'm really proud of our seniors and the four years that they gave us.

"The underclassmen stepped up, with two freshmen starting on defense and a couple sophomores on defense as well."

Ben Murphy is based in the downstate Tawas area and writes for several publications, including the Munising Beacon, St. Ignace News and Iosco County News-Herald. He has writtern stories about a number of Mining Journal area teams during their playoff runs in recent years.