In Friday’s last five minutes, Franklin caught every break a team hoping for a comeback could possibly ask for.
The Grizzly Cubs scored on a four-play drive aided by a critical face mask penalty. They got a three-and-out they’d been waiting all night for, another quick score, and recovered an onside kick when senior kicker Jack Henderson hit a Plainfield special teamer with the hardest line drive he could muster off his toe.
But by that point, the gap between Franklin and victory was already too big to close. Even with those two late scores, the Grizzly Cubs still lost 48-37 to a Plainfield team they couldn’t slow down and fell to 3-4 on the season.
“We were down big,” Franklin coach Chris Coll said. “We had a horrible second quarter, not really a good third quarter. The fact that we were down big and kept playing, made some plays on defense, got the ball back made some plays on special teams, put a couple drives together and got closer, almost in striking distance, I’m proud of that.”
The deficit got too big in the game’s middle two quarters, however, because Franklin didn’t have an answer for Plainfield’s playmakers.
The Grizzly Cubs went up 14-13 on an 11-yard keeper by senior quarterback Reed Roberts with 4:59 to go in the first half, but Plainfield scored the game’s next four touchdowns to nearly put it away.
On the ensuing drive after Roberts’ touchdown, Plainfield senior quarterback Aiden Moyers found 6-foot-6 junior wide receiver Cael Vanderbush over the middle on a deep post route for a 32-yard touchdown to make it 20-14. Roberts was intercepted on the following Franklin possession by Plainfield sophomore Noah Hessong, and Moyers hit Vanderbush deep again on a go route for a 48-yard touchdown to make it 27-14 with 1:28 to go in the first half.
Vanderbush finished with 123 yards on just four receptions and also rushed for 45 yards on six carries as a wildcat quarterback.
“They hit some big plays,” Coll said. “He’s a really good player.”
Franklin started the second half with a 64-yard drive that reached the Plainfield 9, but the Grizzly Cubs chose to take a field goal from senior Nick Woods instead of going for it on 4th and 1, making it 27-17. Thanks in large part to a return by Vanderbush that allowed Plainfield to start its drive at the 50, the Quakers answered with another touchdown, this one a 4-yard touchdown plunge by junior workhorse tailback Juan Nieto, who finished with 101 yards on 19 carries.
Franklin went three and out, then Moyers found Nieto out of the backfield on a wheel route for a 16-yard touchdown that made it 41-17.
“They got big plays and we didn’t do anything with the ball,” Coll said. “We gave them the ball back too quick without any points to show for it.”
Franklin finally got an answer when Roberts hit senior receiver Max Lancer for a 13-yard touchdown to make it 41-24 with 10:37 to go in the game, but Plainfield got its own answer on a phenomenal one-handed catch by senior receiver Jack Beebe on a 15-yard touchdown lob to make it 48-24. Beebe finished with three total touchdowns, running two in as a wildcat quarterback in the first half.
Roberts found Lancer for a 19-yard touchdown with 3:52 to go and a 27-yard touchdown with 1:04 left, but Franklin couldn’t convert a two-point conversion on the second score and couldn’t turn the recovered onside kick into points, the late rally having come far too late.
