Another one-possession loss sinks QND, eliminates any chance of playoff push

QUINCY — Mistakes and missed opportunities will haunt the Quincy Notre Dame football team.

The Raiders saw their playoff hopes evaporate Friday night when Columbia (Mo.) Father Tolton scored three touchdowns in a six-minute stretch overlapping the third and fourth quarters to erase a 12-point deficit and post a 35-28 victory at Advance Physical Therapy Field.

QND amassed 413 yards of total offense in overcoming an early 13-0 deficit, but four turnovers, 107 yards in penalties and its inability to score after having first and goal from the 6 with five minutes remaining contributed to its fifth loss in six games.

The defeat came one week after the Raiders rallied to go ahead with 1:12 left, only to allow an 83-yard touchdown on the ensuing kickoff to drop a 35-34 decision to Southern Boone.

“Obviously, any time you shoot yourself in the foot, you’re not going to give yourself a chance,” a dejected QND coach Jack Cornell said. “I think that just comes down to me putting the guys in position to be successful and to put them in a spot to be able to win the game.”

The Trailblazers, now 6-0 and ranked eighth in Missouri Class 2, entered the game averaging 49.4 points per game and immediately showed why.

Wide receiver Cameron Lee caught a Jake Ryan pass over the middle and raced 71 yards on the third play from scrimmage for a 6-0 lead. And after QND quarterback Noah Lunt threw the first of his four interceptions, Lee hauled in a 46-yard scoring strike down the left sideline from Ryan to make it 13-0 with 3 minutes, 23 seconds elapsed.

“They have put up a lot of points against a lot of teams they have played, so we knew what we had in front of us,” Cornell said.

Lee caught six passes for 158 yards, returned a punt 49 yards for a touchdown with 9:42 left to give Father Tolton its final cushion and came away with three interceptions. Ryan threw for 273 yards and three scores.

“We thought they were a big, physical team, and as it turned out that was right,” Father Tolton coach Michael Egnew said of QND. “We’re undersized, so our skill guys make all the plays for us.

“We didn’t rush the ball for hardly anything (85 yards on 29 attempts), but our passing game was what it has been all year. Our quarterback stepped up to make some plays and our receivers made some plays down the field.”

The QND defense held after Lunt was intercepted a second time at the 7:05 mark of the first quarter and the Raiders embarked on an 11-play, 66-yard drive that culminated with Lunt’s 1-yard plunge to cut the deficit to 13-7 in the final minute of the opening period.

After a 28-yard field goal by Father Tolton’s Will Bramon made it 16-7, QND junior running back Ivan Hun bolted 38 yards up the middle for a touchdown to end a seven-play, 80-yard march to trim the Trailblazers’ lead to 16-14 with 4:16 left in the first half.

Then, 66 seconds later, Gavin Doellman scooped up a punt that had sailed over his head, cut across the field and raced 78 yards down the right sideline to put QND on top 21-16.

“I knew it was going to be a good bounce, so I just turned around and ran to the opposite side,” said Doellman, who also caught six passes for 73 yards. “We had a bunch of blockers clearing the way for me.”

The Raiders appeared to take control when Hun scored from 8 yards out and Jack Brenner converted on the extra point to make it 28-16 with 7:05 left in the third quarter.

Hun, who came off the bench to rush for 144 yards and a TD against Southern Boone, was a workhorse for QND. He ran 33 times for 179 yards as the hosts chewed up 200 yards on the ground.

But the Raiders’ defense allowed Ryan to scramble 14 yards on third and 8 from the Father Tolton 34. Carson Jacaway then hauled in a screen pass from Ryan on a third-and-10 play and scampered 17 yards to the QND 35.

A pass interference penalty moved the ball to the 24, and Ryan hit Rylan Wagner on a 13-yard crossing pattern two plays later for the score. Doellman hammered Bramon at the 1 on the two-point try to keep the Raiders in front 28-22.

A holding penalty backed up QND on its next drive, and Lee then picked off Lunt over the middle on the final play of the third quarter and returned it to the Raiders’ 45.

Ryan found Jacaway down the right sideline for a 44-yard gain to open the fourth quarter and Will Breitweiser scored from a yard out on the next play to put Father Tolton on top 29-28 with 11:42 to go.

“I guess we kind of thought we were going to win when we got up 12,” Doellman said.

Trailblazers kicker Lucas Boyer boomed most of his kickoffs through the end zone and the Raiders’ Jace Allensworth thought the ensuing kick was heading there, too, only to see it drop at the 1 and stay in play. Allensworth scrambled to field the ball but was stopped at the 6.

QND was forced to punt and Lee caught it on the run at the Raiders’ 49, danced away from several would-be tacklers and zipped through traffic down the middle for the score to make it 35-28 with 9:42 remaining.

“He’s a really, really good player,” Egnew said of Lee. “He’s got some baseball offers (from colleges), but he’s a football kid. He loves to play, loves to compete.”

QND marched from its own 14 to the Father Tolton 6 on his next possession largely behind the running of Hun. But after Denver Bryan lost 2 yards and the Raiders were called for a holding penalty, Lunt, who completed 20 of 34 passes for 213 yards, threw three incompletions to turn the ball over on downs with 3:55 remaining.

QND got the ball back with 30 seconds to go, but Lee intercepted a long pass by Lunt at the Father Tolton 26 two plays later to seal it.

The Raiders, assured of only their third losing record since 2002, travel to Decatur St. Teresa next week before closing out the season at home against St. Louis Soldan and John Burroughs.

“This was obviously disappointing,” Cornell said. “We have to put our best foot forward and try to put a ballgame together.”