CANTON, Ohio — After an historic season in which they won 15 straight games, making it back to the state championship for the first time since 1998, Liberty Center’s season came to an end on Saturday. The Tigers fell in the state final 21-14 to Perry.
"I'm grateful for these seniors, what they did," head coach Casey Mohler said.
"I'm very proud of them. Obviously this stings a bit right now. The only thing that we've asked them to do is play as hard as they can for 48 minutes, and I thought they did that tonight."
The Tigers went down early when the Pirates scored first to go up 7-0. After a Liberty Center punt, Perry, on its first play of the drive, lofted up a 32-yard passing TD.
Later, the Pirates were on offense once again when a fumble was recovered by Liberty Center senior defensive standout Landon Bockelman.
"It really shows how much it means to put work in the offseason," Bockelman said. "And the shows the guys who want to work. You can't get here without those kinds of teammates. I was really proud of our underclassman, and how they responded to things and how they stepped up."
In the waning minutes of the first half, the Tigers offense was driving. On a 4th and 2, Trenton Kruse cut through the pile to go 33 yards untouched, making the score 7-7 with 2:09 left in the first half.
"It's an amazing feeling being here," Kruse said. "Wish we could've ended the game differently."
Early in the second half, Trenton Kruse ripped off a 55-yard run to put the Tigers in the red zone.
A few plays later, Landon Amstutz fired a pass to Colton Kruse for a quick sprint to the end zone. Liberty Center led 14-7 with 7:54 in the 3rd quarter.
"We've worked for this since our freshmen year," Colton Kruse said. "Our goal for the season was to get here. We didn't have any other goals. We knew we wanted to be here."
Perry quickly answered back with a screen passing play that turned into a long touchdown. The score read 14-all with 6:03 in the 3rd quarter.
A few possessions later, Perry ripped off a 60-yard touchdown run to go up 21-14 with 4:07 left in the 3rd quarter.
A major gut punch for the Tigers came in the 4th quarter when Liberty Center, on a 4th and 1 play, fumbled and recovered the ball short of the line to gain.
Perry's offense drove to the 22-yard line when the Tigers picked up a critical 4th down stop to get the ball back with 3:23 left. Liberty Center drives down to the 27 when they began to take shots at the corner of the endzone. On 4th down and with 23 seconds remaining, quarterback Landon Amstutz's pass over the middle fell incomplete, effectively sealing the win for the Pirates.
Liberty Center will regroup and reload as they go into a long offseason.
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