Platte County collects on pair of late turnovers, pulls through against upset-minded Grain Valley

GRAIN VALLEY, Mo. — Platte County junior defensive end Brody Hawk batted the ball in the air and finally created the opportunity for a desperately needed defensive stop.

Grain Valley sophomore quarterback Cohen Morris’ seemingly safe screen pass turned into an interception that ended the Eagles’ valiant upset bid in Friday night’s Class 5 state quarterfinal at Moody Murry Field. The Pirates pulled away late for a 46-33 victory but not until junior linebacker Hank Fowler capitalized on Hawk’s timely deflection in the closing minutes.

“We were struggling the whole half, needed a big stop right there,” said Fowler, who made a fifth consecutive start at linebacker since Platte County shifted to a more traditional 4-3 formation on defense. “Reading that screen right there, I was on a blitz — felt it coming, just dropped back a little bit. Luckily, Brody was able to get a hand on (the ball), and I was just right there to make a play.”

No. 1-ranked Platte County (12-0) scored on six consecutive offensive possessions spanning the close of the second quarter and the second half to keep hopes of a second straight Class 5 state championship alive. The Pirates extended Missouri’s longest winning streak to 26 and advanced to the state semifinals for the fifth time in the past nine seasons.

That sets up a matchup on the road at Kirkwood (10-1), which survived its own offensive shootout to beat Farmington 70-56 over the weekend. The game was moved to 3 p.m. Friday due to the potential of inclement weather on Saturday.

Platte County plays in the state semifinals for the 10th time in program history. This will be the seventh of those that will on the road with the lone games at Pirate Stadium a 1999 loss to Aurora (Class 3A), a 2002 win over Seneca (Class 3) and last year’s 44-30 victory over MICDS.

“Every week, win and advance. Taking it one week at a time — preparation, everything,” said Fowler, who finished with five tackles against Grain Valley. “Just keep on winning and advancing, get us to our final goal.”

Grain Valley sophomore running back Dawson Head totaled 193 yards on the ground and four touchdowns to make the rematch of a Week 2 Suburban Conference White Division matchup in the regular season much closer. In the first meeting, the two teams combined for three kickoff returns for touchdowns in the first half, but Platte County ultimately led by as much as much as 40 in a 54-23 blowout win.

The second half of the playoff game featured two ties and four lead changes with Platte County wiping out a final deficit to go ahead for good on the first of senior quarterback Rocco Marriott’s two late rushing touchdowns to put the Pirates up 40-33 with 3 minutes, 20 seconds left in regulation. Fowler’s third career interception — all in his first five career starts — came three plays later, and he returned the ball to Grain Valley’s 6.

“He’s a clutch dude,” Platte County senior wide receiver Braiden Stevens said of Fowler.

Marriott went into the end zone from 5 yards to create the first two-possession lead of the game for either team and leaving only 1:38 on the clock.

Grain Valley’s final possession ended with Fowler jarring the ball loose from Morris on a scramble, and Platte County senior defensive end Cale Buntz (five tackles, two for loss) fell on the loose ball. Marriott kneeled out the final seconds, adding another memorable chapter to a series of 10 games between the rivals since 2018 with the Pirates holding a 7-3 edge overall and 3-1 in the four postseason matchups. The Pirates have held a running clock in all but four of the 26 wins in the current unbeaten streak with two of those instances coming in the past two weeks.

“It’s one of those things like we don’t necessarily want (the close games) to happen, but it’s more fun, honestly,” Stevens said. “We get to play the whole game. It’s great when you win by a lot, but just playing a half? I mean I love football. I know these guys do, too, so it’s like we want to play. Especially when you get the win on a big game, it’s just great.”

Marriott totaled seven touchdowns, throwing two each to Stevens and Tres Baskerville and another to Ty Christopher — Platte County’s three standout senior wide receivers.

Grain Valley (8-4) countered with an efficient rushing attack that created a back-and-forth second half after each team blocked the other’s extra point following their third touchdown to create a 20-20 tie. The Pirates went for a two-point conversion after each of their final four scores but only converted one in exchanges necessary with the defense showing the most vulnerability since a 60-28 win over Washburn Rural (Kansas) in late September.

Grain Valley took a 27-26 lead early in the fourth quarter after Morris completed a throwback trick play to a reserve lineman not even listed on the roster for 20 yards on a fourth and 6. Two plays later, Head bowled in from 1 yard out, and the extra point created the first lead change of the second half.

Marriott, who finished 16 of 21 for 256 yards, responded with a three-play touchdown drive, capped with a 53-yard completion to Christopher behind the defense, but a failed two-point conversion left the lead at five.

On the next possession, Morris converted two third-and-10s with timely completions on the following drive and then sneaked a 12-yard scoring pass to junior wide receiver Terell King to give Grain Valley the lead back, and a failed two-point conversion resulted in a 33-32 advantage for the Eagles with 5:36 left in regulation.

“Those kids wanted to keep playing their season, too,” Platte County coach Bill Utz said. “Credit to them, and luckily, we were able to pull enough together and come out on top.”

Grain Valley then tried a surprise onside kick, and Platte County sophomore Boston Wasserman importantly came down with the recovery off of dangerous high hop to give Marriott another chance. The Pirates gained an initial first down an 11-yard rush for senior running back Adam Gisler before a holding penalty put the drive in danger.

Marriott hit Stevens for 8 yards, but Gisler came up just short of the line to gain on a third and short.

Platte County went to the play that delivered the game-winning touchdown a week earlier in the Class 5 District 8 championship game against Rockhurst but went left this time. Marriott broke an initial tackle on the quarterback power run and then slithered through contact for a 33-yard touchdown. He then completed a two-point pass to senior tight end Brooks Hall, who only had one catch for 2 yards outside of the conversion while fellow senior tight end Jack Utz went without a reception.

Grain Valley suddenly trailed by seven for the first time since halftime and committed the two turnovers on the final two possessions.

“(Rocco’s) a gamechanger for sure, in my opinion the best quarterback in the state of Missouri,” Stevens said. “I knew he was going to get in. When you have Rocco on your team, you know it’s going to go your way — especially in the close games. That’s what he lives for.”

For a third straight game, Platte County overcame a slow start to earn a win — this time in a game played in intermittent rainy drizzle of varying intensity. The Pirates endured a scoreless first half and survived five lead changes in the final 15 minutes against Rockhurst, the final three all coming in the last 3:28 of regulation capped with Marriott’s 1-yard touchdown with only 2 seconds on the clock. That came a week after the first pnts before halftime of the season in what turned into a 42-0 blowout of St. Pius X in the Class 5 District 8 semifinals.

Platte County went three-and-out on the first possession of the rematch with Grain Valley after Marriott’s deep third-down pass went just off of Christopher’s fingertips, immediately providing an opening for an offense finding increased success since Head took over as the starter after a Week 6 injury to junior Sjoeren Aumua in a 28-14 loss to Class 4 semifinalist Kearney. The Eagles also turned to Morris at quarterback late in the season, and although he completed just one pass in the first half, he finished 8 of 12 for 115 yards to go with 47 yards rushing against the Pirates.

After the opening punt from Platte County, Grain Valley’s mesh read option attack started creating success against a defensive front starting seniors Cole Johnson (team-high 11 tackles, four loss) and Cooper Hammontree at tackle between Hawk (nine tackles, two for loss) and Buntz.

“You come off of a win the way we did (against Rockhurst), a highly emotional win that we hadn’t dealt with for a while, and then coming into a situation where we had a win against Grain Valley in September, that’s a tough situation to be in for anybody,” Bill Utz said. “I anticipated a little bit of maybe a hangover type scenario, but at the same time, I don’t want to take anything away from Grain Valley in the sense that they made some adjustments. They came out and played, and once they got a little bit of momentum, they continued to do what they do best.”

Head capped a 12-play scoring drive with a 28-yard touchdown to put Grain Valley up 7-0 with 3:53 left in what ended up a quick opening quarter, and Platte County eventually reinserted junior defensive tackle Kyler Parker (two tackles, one for loss) into the lineup after attempting to rest him due to a left arm injury, while senior KJ Stallings (eight tackles), junior Carlos Baskerville (three tackles) and Fowler played the majority of snaps at linebacker in a different look from the 4-2-5 formation used in the first matchup with the Eagles.

Platte County continued to start seniors Mudiaga Egbedeju (three tackles, one for loss) and Adeboye Akande (one tackle) but rotated between senior Mogie Walkingstack (five tackles) and juniors Jack Johnson (seven tackles), Devin Lumm (four tackles) and Matt Cisco (three tackles) at safety to try and find the right combination.

“When adversity hits, like coach has been telling us all week, we need a leader to step in,” Fowler said. “Cole, Cale, all those guys stepped in and let us know we’ve got to step up and get this game done with.”

Platte County immediately answered the first touchdown with Marriott finding Tres Baskerville for a 35-yard touchdown late in the first quarter to create the first of three ties, this one at 7-7. The two teams then exchanged empty drives with Grain Valley turning the ball over on downs just outside the red zone before the Pirates opted to punt and pin the Eagles deep in their own territory.

The move worked with a quick three-and-out setting up a six-play, 41-yard touchdown drive capped with Marriott’s second touchdown pass to Tres Baskerville — this one a 4-yarder on the right edge of the end zone with 32 seconds left before halftime.

“Tres is a great player. He finds windows; he gets open. He’s explosive, powerful,” said Stevens, who finished with team-highs of nine catches for 145 yards in his best performance since putting up a line of 11 for 186 and three touchdowns against Washburn Rural.

Platte County went into halftime with a 14-7 lead and scored on all five possessions in the second half despite playing without senior left tackle Quinn Lightle, a four-year starter on the offensive line, to an ankle injury in the second quarter. He briefly returned but ultimately gave way to sophomore Max Shuey in a big spot. The Pirates were well over 400 yards of offense. Gisler ran for 79 on 12 carries, while Marriott added 94 on the ground on his 12 attempts while spreading out his completions to five receivers.

Baskerville had all three of his catchers for 43 yards in the first half, while Christopher finished with two for 67. Gisler’s lone reception on a screen pass went for a loss of 1 yard.

Platte County started the same offensive line for a fourth straight game with seniors Michael Poncavage (left guard) and Lucas Dillingham (center) and freshman Jayden Horn (right guard) and junior Cooper Koenigsfeld (right tackle) alongside Lightle before Shuey saw the easily the most significant playing time of his career to this point.

“Obviously, Quinn’s an anchor there for us,” Bill Utz said. “To lose him, a lot of times when you have that situation, an offensive line group or the whole team might freak out a little. I thought they did a great job of stepping up, and Max is a good young player who stepped up in a really critical spot and had a nice game. Credit to that whole offensive unit to keep moving, and we’ll get Quinn healed up and ready to go.”

Despite the mostly quick-strike offense, Platte County struggled to come up with a defensive stop that could have created separation. The Pirates started the third quarter on defense, and Head carried on the next three plays with a 17-yarder and then a 53-yard touchdown sandwiched around a negative play to forge a tie at 14-14. The Pirates scored on the next snap with Marriott hitting Stevens along the visitor’s sideline. He stayed inbounds and slipped an ankle tackle on the way to a 71-yard score.

“I seen where he was at, and I knew I was good,” Stevens said. “He had a little bit of a head start on me, but I knew; I knew.”

Grain Valley blocked the ensuing extra point attempt and seemed poised to take the lead back after Head’s third rushing touchdown, only to have an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty called after the play. The Eagles then gained 10 of those yards back on a pair of subsequent offsides before Cole Johnson ultimately blocked the slightly longer extra point attempt to create the game’s final tie at 20-20.

Stevens, who now has at least one touchdown reception in 11 of 12 games this season, hauled in a 20-yard score on the next drive, but a failed two-point run kept the lead at 26-20 and created some uncertainty in another uneven performance from Platte County after a dominant regular season. The Pirates have now played from behind in each of the last two games after trailing just once during a 14-0 run to the fourth state championship in program history.

“The thing with this group is that when it’s not perfect, they’re not playing their best. That’s kind of who they approach things,” Bill Utz said. “Yeah, it was a little bit ugly at times, but the resilience was still there that we needed to have. Really, you look at the whole scenario, and anything can happen in the playoffs. You just throw everything out the window, which is so hard to understand and to think about going into a game like this when the success was there earlier in the season.”

Platte County’s trip to St. Louis on Thanksgiving weekend harkens back to the run of three straight undefeated Class 3A/3 state titles from 2000-2002 at the Trans World Dome/Edward Jones Dome (now known as The Dome at American Center) under a different playoff system. The Pirates also traveled to play St. Mary’s in a 2019 Class 4 state semifinal in the first of two seasons that resulted in a championship game loss — the first to Webb City and the next to Jackson after a move up to Class 5.

In each of five playoff appearances since 2017, Platte County reached at least the state semifinals, and Kirkwood, coached by former NFL star Jeremy Maclin and winners of eight straight since a Week 3 loss to Class 6 Lafayette (Wildwood), stands in the way of another Show-Me Bowl berth. The Pioneers were a state semifinalist last year and won state their most recent state title — both in Class 6 — while also winning a Class 5 championship in 2012.

The other Class 5 state semifinal features Cardinal Ritter (9-3) and Carthage (11-1) with Saturday’s winners advancing to play in the Class 5 Show-Me Bowl at 7 p.m. on Friday, December 5 at Spratt Stadium on the campus of Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph.