Milledgeville makes history with first trip to state final, beats Polo

MILLEDGEVILLE – Looking to grab the momentum early in Saturday’s Illinois 8-Man Football Association semifinal, Milledgeville got a lightning bolt from the blue on its first snap from scrimmage.

Micah Toms-Smith’s 86-yard touchdown sprint set the tone from the start, and the Missiles turned things over to their stout defense to defeat Polo 28-14 at Floyd Daub Fueld. That snaps a two-game losing streak at home to their rivals, but even bigger: it sends Milledgeville to the state championship game for the first time in program history.

“We’ve never played for a state championship at our school, so this just means everything,” Toms-Smith said. “I’m just speechless right now, just so proud of my guys.”

“I don’t know if it’s sunk in yet,” junior quarterback Karter Livengood added. “I just know we’ve got another big game next week.”

Milledgeville (11-1) avenged a regular-season loss to the Marcos (11-1) on its home field, flipping the script from a year ago when the Missiles beat Polo in the regular-season game before losing in their second-round playoff game.

The Missiles had a pair of 100-yard rushers in Toms-Smith (14 carries, 120 yards, TD) and Livengood (29-197, 3 TDs). Livengood had touchdown runs of 9, 41 and 21 yards, the final one on a fourth-and-2 with 3:39 to play that all but ended the Marcos’ hopes.

“We did it last Saturday, and we knew we could do it again,” Livengood said about the final clock-killing drive. “Getting the lead, we knew we had to eat up the clock three yards at a time, and that’s exactly what we did. It’s two elite teams going at it, iron on iron, and things fell our way. I think we wanted it more.”

On the other side, the Missiles’ defense limited Polo senior quarterback Gus Mumford to 43 yards on 18 carries, and senior back Noah Dewey to 24 yards on seven carries. Mumford did complete 9 of 19 passes for 113 yards and a touchdown, but playing from behind was an uphill battle.

“The one big play, obviously they’re a momentum team, and anything they get, they’re going to gain off it,” Dewey said.

“I think we all just got down on ourselves right away. We’ve just got to stay positive there,” Mumford said.

That “one big play” was a doozy. Toms-Smith took a direct snap and got around the left edge, then outran all eight Polo defenders for an 8-0 lead just 21 seconds into the game.

“All week, the coaches had written up five plays we were going to run to start the game, and when he said that one, I told him, ‘I’ll get you a touchdown,’ and that’s what we did,” Toms-Smith said. “I can’t even explain how great my line blocked on that play, and Karter and Dalton [Adamec] set the edge, so it was really just a race to the end zone. It was the biggest play of the game. Momentum is what we knew we needed, and that’s what got us to this win.”

“Oh man, that set the tone immediately, set the tone for the rest of the game,” Livengood added. “It was a huge confidence boost for the whole team.”

“We wanted to get a quick start, because we knew that we had a good defense – we knew that they had a good defense too – and we felt whoever put points on the board first, it was going to be tough to play catch-up, and our guys responded,” Milledgeville coach Jason Wroble said.

After Livengood’s 21-yard run set up his first touchdown, Polo answered on its third series. Kailin Gulbranson’s 46-yard run set up the Marcos at the Milledgeville 6-yard line, and Dewey ran in from 3 yards out two plays later.

“It was a tough start. Their first offensive play they score, and we lose a key lineman on both sides of the ball [Logan Nelson, knee injury] on our first series,” Polo coach Ted Alston said. “We didn’t quit, we came back, but unfortunately, I thought they just played a little better than us today and forced us to do some things that we really didn’t want to have to try to do.”

Livengood sprinted 41 yards to the end zone on the Missiles’ second play of the second half for a 22-8 lead. But after the teams traded punts, Mumford opened the next series with a 29-yard pass to Dewey, then hit a wide-open Damon Rowe on a 26-yard touchdown TD pass to cut the deficit to 22-14 with 1:09 left in the third quarter.

“Even though we were down a couple of touchdowns, we still had energy out there, we still performed,” Mumford said. “But they beat us in the physical game today.”

The Missiles put the game away with the next drive, covering 84 yards in 15 plays and taking 9:19 off the clock. They converted two third downs and two fourth downs on the drive, the last one Livengood’s TD run around left end to put the Missiles up 28-14 with less than four minutes remaining.

“Karter is a load on both sides of the ball, and we just decided to put the ball in our stud’s hand and it paid off,” Wroble said.

“Our kids never quit, it just felt like we couldn’t make that one play at a key time to try to turn the momentum around,” Alston said. “I give Milledgeville credit; they’d have fourth-and-3 and they’d get 3 1/2. We just were unable to get that key stop at a key moment or make that key play on offense at a key time, and sometimes that’s just how the game goes.”

The loss ended another strong season for the Marcos, who went 9-0 in the regular season and advanced to the I8FA semifinals for the fifth straight season.

“We definitely surprised a lot of people,” Dewey said. “Our coaches were always talking about how everyone was doubting us, didn’t think we could go 9-0, 10-0, 11-0. All year, we just went out there and proved ourselves.”