Polo loses heartbreaker on final play against West Central in eight-man semifinals

POLO – It’s always hard to lose a playoff game and see your season come to an end.

The Polo Marcos suffered one of the most agonizing, gut-wrenching playoff losses possible in Saturday afternoon’s Illinois 8-Man Football Association state semifinal against West Central.

After the Marcos scored a touchdown with 42 seconds left to take the lead, West Central answered with a score as the final horn sounded to pull out a 50-48 victory.

“We felt pretty good after we scored. Obviously, we didn’t want to give them any time, because they’re just too explosive,” Polo coach Ted Alston said. “Probably not the play we were expecting, and they put it in the hands of their best player, and he came through. He went through half of our defense and made the play. He’s just a heck of a player.”

That player was West Central all-state running back Kaiden Droste, who ran for 302 yards and six touchdowns on 24 rushes. But it was the final carry and the last 26 yards that will haunt the Marcos’ nightmares.

With the ball on the Polo 26-yard line and 6.7 seconds on the clock, Droste took the pitch on a tailback toss to the left. He raced toward the sideline, with a pair of Polo defenders stringing out the play. Before going out of bounds, Droste cut back to his right and turned up the field, avoiding would-be tacklers.

As he got to the 15-yard line, time expired, so it was all or nothing. He broke through one line of Marcos, then another, and finally he burst clear and ran to the end zone, leaving a heartbroken pack of Polo players on the ground in his wake.

“Honestly what I saw was two Polo kids standing right in front of me, and I thought, ‘This is it right here.’ Then I opened my eyes and I was standing in the end zone,” Droste said. “I don’t even know. I blanked out on five seconds of that play, just because I thought it was over. I saw the sideline, knew I couldn’t go there, had to cut it back inside, and something happened; I didn’t even see what happened. I heard the horn going off, and that was nuts. I don’t even know what to say.”

It was the fifth touchdown of more than 20 yards in the game for Droste, and his seventh double-digit run. On the 17 others, Polo (9-3) bottled him up fairly well, but the senior 2,000-yard rusher found a way to make big plays when his team needed them.

“I knew if we got one block, I thought he’d cut back across the grain to get it, because I knew how they’d been playing,” West Central coach Jason Kirby said. “He’s just an amazing player that made the most amazing play you’ve ever seen at the greatest time it could’ve ever been imagined. He’s a special player, and it’s a special group.”

Polo’s all-state 2,000-yard rusher also had a huge game. Junior Brock Soltow finished with 41 carries for 221 yards and four scores, including on the first play of the game for the Marcos to tie the score and answer Droste’s 28-yard touchdown run one play earlier that capped the Heat’s opening possession just 59 seconds into the game.

Soltow’s 43-yard sprint ended in the end zone 11 seconds later, then the Marcos recovered an onside kick after it bounced off a West Central player. Polo drove all the way to the 1-yard line, where Soltow was tackled short of the goal line on fourth down.

But on third down from the Heat 5, Droste was hit at the line of scrimmage and fumbled. Cayden Webster recovered for Polo, and Soltow scored on the next play to give the Marcos a 14-6 lead with 2:55 left in the first quarter.

“I thought we played a great game,” Alston said. “My hat’s off to them, because they played a great game, too.”

After both teams came up empty on their next series, West Central (12-0) tied it on Droste’s 18-yard scoring sprint with 7:29 left in the second quarter. But Polo again had the answer, as Webster took the snap under center and scored on a 1-yard QB sneak on fourth-and-goal from inside the 1 to cap a nine-play, 47-yard drive for a 22-14 lead with 2:23 left before halftime.

This time, West Central responded quickly, with Droste sprinting in from 40 yards with 42 seconds left to get within 22-20; the Heat’s two-point run came up short.

Delo Fernandez ran in from 33 yards out on Polo’s first drive of the second half, but after that two-point conversion pass failed, West Central fullback Parker Meldrum capped a 12-play, 62-yard drive on the Heat’s first series with a 5-yard run, then Mason Carnes ran in the conversion to tie the score 28-28 with 4:42 left in the third quarter.

“We knew it was going to be a fight to the end, and we played our hearts out all game,” Droste said.

Soltow ran in from 18 yards to finish off a 10-play drive that took more than six minutes to put Polo up 34-28 with 10:24 remaining, but two plays later, Droste sprinted in from 57 yards, and added the conversion run for a 36-34 West Central lead with 9:36 to play.

Fernandez then outran the Heat defense for a 32-yard touchdown and a 42-36 lead after Soltow connected with Noah Dewey for the two-point conversion, but Droste broke off a 62-yard scoring run four plays later, and Carnes’ conversion run made it 44-42 West Central.

The Marcos then embarked on a nine-play, 53-yard drive that took 4:33 off the clock and ended with Soltow scoring from 9 yards out; he and running back Brady Wolber both ran into the pile, but Soltow bounced off the pack and scored with 42 seconds left for a 48-44 Polo lead after the two-point run failed.

“We proved already in this game that we can go down and score in the blink of an eye,” Droste said. “It took us a few plays, but we did what we do. We marched down the field, and we don’t give up until the end.”

The Heat took over at their own 45-yard line with 40.8 seconds left, and after gaining 1 yard in the first three plays, faced a fourth-and-9 from the 46. But Carnes connected with Meldrum for a 16-yard pass play, then ran up to spike the ball with 12.8 seconds left. Carnes hit Meldrum with a 12-yard pass on the next play, and again ran up to clock it with 6.7 seconds remaining, setting up the one final, fateful play from the Polo 26.

“Fourth-and-9 and we convert, then we got two spikes in there, quick plays that we’ve never had to do all year, and we did it successfully twice. It just shows how much heart we have,” Droste said. “You can’t just walk away and have them deem you the champions if you’re playing the champs. We had to take it from them, and that’s what we did at the end. It was amazing.”

“Mason did an awesome job getting a couple really big pass plays to get a couple first downs, and that actually puts you in a position that you didn’t think you were going to be in,” Kirby said. “Those two pass plays were enormous, and can’t be overlooked in the fact that we got down to the 26-yard line – it felt like it was the 56-yard line – but we got in that situation and Kaiden just did what he does. Mason and our offensive line, and Parker making some great catches, everybody helped make this win possible.”

Meldrum ran for 51 yards, and Carnes added 46 rushing yards and 28 passing yards for West Central, which advances to play Amboy-LaMoille-Ohio in the I8FA state championship game next Friday night in Monmouth.

Fernandez finished with seven carries for 92 yards and two TDs, and Dewey ran four times for 40 yards for the Marcos. Soltow was 2 for 4 through the air for 32 yards, with completions to Webster and Fernandez.

Polo’s reign as the two-time defending state champions ends one step short of a third straight trip to the title game, but the Marcos had nothing to hang their heads about after the growth and improvement they made throughout the season to get to this point.

“It’s going to hurt. It hurts the kids right now, but we’re real proud of them,” Alston said. “Where we were at the beginning of the year to where we ended up, it was a tremendous year for us. We were just one play short there, but I’m so proud of the kids and what they accomplished.”