Free kick pleases coach, likely confuses fans

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By Jon Gremmels | Thursday, October 5, 2006 1:05 AM CDT | () comments

Many fans were left scratching their heads Friday night, wondering what was going on during Cambridge’s 56-12 homecoming victory over Kewanee Wethersfield.

But after Eric Leander kicked a 34-yard field goal on a free kick, coach Larry Stahl can retire a happy man.

Stahl, who guided Cambridge to the state runner-up last year in his 25th season as coach at the school, has been waiting years to have his team try a free kick. High school and professional rules allow a team to take a free kick after making a fair catch on a punt.

“I knew about the rule since I started coaching,” said Stahl, who has announced that this will be his final year as coach. “It’s been in the back of my mind for a long time.”

It didn’t come out of nowhere.

“We worked on it all week,” Stahl said, adding that he hoped to set it up earlier, but the punt was blocked.

The Vikings got another chance with 5:53 left in the third quarter when they called for a fair catch at the 49-yard line. A 15-yard penalty because the return man was hit moved the ball to the Wethersfield 34-yard line.

Leander then teed up the ball and booted it through the uprights while the Wethersfield players set up for a possible return and remained the required 10 yards from the ball.

“I let the officiating crew know about it ahead of time and called timeout to let the other coach know,” Stahl said. “It worked out great.”

Except for the bewildered fans who didn’t understand what was happening.

“(Probably) 99.9 percent of the fans in the stands didn’t have a clue,” Stahl said. “Many of them probably still don’t.”

NOTES

He’s not the Fridge,

but he’s big in backfield

Moline has come up with its own way to beef up its backfield. The Maroons have inserted linebacker Jimmy Hallene, a 5-foot-11, 239-pound senior, into the fullback position a few times in recent games.

He caught a pass against Alleman, then scored a touchdown on a 2-yard run two weeks ago against United Township and carried once for 5 yards and caught a pass for a 33-yard gain last week against Galesburg.

“I love it,” he said. “I’ve been waiting to play fullback since I was in Junior Maroons.”

Coming up

Muscatine suffered its first loss last Friday, and the Muskies will try to hand North Scott its first setback this Friday when the teams square off in Eldridge.

The big game on the Illinois side features Moline at Rock Island, with the loser being pretty much eliminated from the Western Big Six title picture.

Nobody has put up much of challenge for Class 1A’s top-ranked Aledo, but that might change Friday when the unbeaten Green Dragons travel to No. 9 Lewistown. There is another big game in the West Prairie Trail Conference — in the East Division — when Cambridge plays at Annawan. Each team takes a 5-1 mark, into the game. In Iowa, Bellevue, which suffered its first loss last week, takes on unbeaten Clayton Ridge in Guttenberg, Iowa.In a game many people were pointing to before the season started, preseason No. 1-ranked teams Bureau Valley (Class 3A) and Sterling Newman (2A) battle at noon Saturday at Sterling Stadium.

Premier performers

Tony Bassett, Clinton: Eclipsed his own school record of 237 rushing yards by running for 276 in the first half and finishing with 342 and four touchdowns as the River Kings beat Davenport Central 58-13. He also threw a 14-yard TD pass.

Michael Black, Matt O’Donnell, Tipton: Combined for 36 carries for 275 yards and a touchdown each in a 28-0 win against North Cedar. O’Donnell (21 carries, 129 yards) also caught a 7-yard touchdown pass and made seven tackles.

Lucas Bohnsack, Wilton: Piled up 193 yards on 21 carries and scored five touchdowns in a 42-15 homecoming win over New London. He also caught a pass for 23 yards and had scoring runs of 29, 2, 19, 10 and 22 yards.

Jake Clark, AlWood-ROWVA: Was involved in five scoring plays to help AlWood/ROWVA stay unbeaten with a 52-6 win against visiting West Central. He rushed for 83 yards on eight carries, including scoring runs of 18, 6 and 12 yards and completed 10 of 21 passes for 145 yards, including touchdown passes of 21 and 25 yards to Nathan Parks.