LINCOLN — Last year around this time, the Lincoln Railsplitters broke a 39-year football playoff drought with a victory over visiting Jacksonville. That same playoff opportunity was there for the Railers against the same visiting school Friday night at Handlin Field.
All this week, Crimsons players wore a sticker on their helmets with the numbers “41-28” — the score of last year’s game. The message from Jacksonville coach Mark Grounds: “Let’s not let them punch their playoff ticket at our expense two years in a row.”
It was a close game for three quarters, but Jacksonville’s ground game finally wore out the Railers’ defense, en route to a 51-21 Week 9 victory that ended Lincoln’s season. The Crimsons will likely start the playoffs on the road next week, but as Grounds told his huddled players afterward, “You guys are a very dangerous 6-3 team.”
Indeed, it will take a very good defense to stop the Jacksonville running game. Senior La’Marion Williams ran for 112 yards on 19 carries and two touchdowns, and freshman Jeremiah Jackson ran for 142 yards on just seven carries in leading Jacksonville (6-3 overall). Last week, the Crimsons ran for more than 500 yards and Friday they ran for 412 more.
The runners were the stars, but the Jacksonville kicker was a major factor too. Senior Brandon Sims had a night that got him close to the all-time Illinois state record for longest field goal in a regular-season game. As it stood, Sims had to settle for a seventh-place tie for his 55-yard kick that got Jacksonville a very important three points, when it was a 7-0 game for Lincoln in the first quarter.
Sims, who also added a 48-yarder to end the first half, tied three others in state history for seventh-longest, with Tucker McCann’s 60-yarder in 2014 for O’Fallon still the record.
“I knew I was capable of it,” Sims said. “I could feel the heart racing, but as soon as I hit it, I knew it was good.”
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Lincoln was guilty of some bad clock management to end the first half, and it cost them those three big points. The Railers had the ball deep at their own 20 with 26.5 seconds left, down 17-7. But the Railers started throwing the ball down the field in a hurry. All that mostly did was keep stopping the clock.
The Railers had a fourth-and-four about their own 40, with four seconds left. A run play was called, and in just two seconds, the run was stuffed in the backfield. Those two seconds still on the clock allowed Sims to come back on the field and attempt the 48-yard field goal, which sailed through the uprights. Instead of being down 10 at the half, with the ball to start the third, Lincoln trudged off the field down 20-7.
Lincoln senior running back Gabe Smith, however, made two runs totaling 40 yards to get in the end zone to start that third quarter, making it a 20-14 game.
The Railers got the ball back with a chance to take the lead, but were stopped on a third down play, bringing out the punter. Railers coach Matt Silkowski called for a fake punt, but the pass was broken up by Jacksonville’s speedy freshman two-way player, Darren Henry.
On the first play from scrimmage, another freshman with speed, Jackson, burst up the middle for a 53-yard TD run to make it more comfortable again for Jacksonville at 27-14.
Back the Railers came, however. Senior quarterback Tate Johnston rediscovered his own running game, and he had some good runs that he capped off with a 3-yard scoring plunge, pulling Lincoln within 27-21 with 2:02 left in the third.
But it was all Jacksonville from there. Sims had a chip-shot 20-yarder that made it 30-21, then the Jacksonville defense stopped Johnston on a fourth-and-three at the Railers’ 28. On the next play, Williams ran it in from 28 yards and suddenly it was 37-21 Crimsons with time running out in the fourth.
“We just had to stay patient and keep plugging away,” Grounds said. “Our running game is about body blows. With our big guys leaning on you, you’re going to be a step slower and you’re going to blink, and our backs run hard.”
Said Williams about next week: “I feel like, our biggest thing is we’ve got to come out strong at the gate. We got to pick it up from the jump and get moving.”
The Railers (4-5, 4-4 CS8) got a valiant effort from senior Paytan Bunner (111 yards on 14 carries) and Johnston had a 30-yard scoring run to open the scoring. Despite the loss, Silkowski said his team will be back.
“I think this is one of the greatest senior classes to ever go through here,” Silkowski said. “We gave it everything we had. No regrets. That was our motto coming in.”
Adrian Dater is a freelance writer for The State Journal-Register. He can be reached through the sports department at sports@sj-r.com.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: IHSA football: Jacksonville runs over Lincoln’s playoff hopes
