Hearts Season Comes to an End, Playoff Hopes Dashed by Mahomet-Seymour

The Effingham Hearts saw their football season come to an end Friday night, losing at Mahomet, 40-6 to the Mahomet-Seymour Bulldogs.  The game was heard on 979XFM and www.979xfm.com. 

The first half featured a good, close contest.  The second half, and particularly the third quarter was not quite as good.

Mahomet-Seymour opened the scoring with 1:32 left in the first quarter on a nine-yard pass from Joe Kenney to Thomas Bane.  The touchdown came after a high snap over the heads of Kenney, the holder and kicker Matthew Prather.  Kenney quickly retrieved the football and threw to Bane who stepped into the end zone for the touchdown that was supposed to be a field goal.

The Hearts came right back and staged a seven-play, 53-yard drive capped by a 13-yard pass to the back of the end zone from Dylan Wolff to Marcus Robinson.  Michael Carie's kick was wide left but the Hearts were back within 7-6 with 9:38 left in the second quarter.

Mahomet-Seymour scored with 3:06 left before halftime on a three-play, 92-yard drive highlighted by a run by Tyler Francisco from the Mahomet-Seymour eight to the Effingham nine yard line.

That left the score at 14-6 Bulldogs at halftime, but you still felt pretty good about the Hearts' position as the Mahomet-Seymour band staged their Senior Night and field show.

Then came the third quarter.  

Suddenly, repeated problems occurred on snaps in the shotgun set and in other facets of the game and the Bulldogs took advantage, scoring three times in the period on a four-yard touchdown run by Francisco, and touchdown passes of five yards and 41 yards to Cully Day.  At the end of the period, Mahomet-Seymour led the Hearts 34-6.

The Bulldogs scored one more time in the fourth period on a 14-yard run by Boyd Roberts to account for the final margin.

Effingham totaled just five net yards rushing to go with 76 passing yards.  Mahomet-Seymour totaled 208 yards rushing and 128 yards passing.

For Effingham, Zach Miller rushed 10 times for 45 yards, Dylan Wolff finished with -57 yards on seven tries, Trent Barnhart carried twice for four yards, Billy Arndt rushed three times for six yards, Tyler Myers rushed three times for one yard, Travis Durbin rushed once for six yards, and Avery Brooks carried once for no gain.

Wolff was six for 14 passing for 76 yards and one touchdown.  Robinson caught four passes for 62 yards including a touchdown, Carter Hayes caught a 12-yard pass and Tyler Myers had a catch for two yards.

Payton Bushue led the Hearts in tackles with 10 including two solos, Brandon Loy had nine tackles including one solo, Matt Wohltman and Billy Arndt each had eight tackles including six solos for Wohltman and three for Arndt, Travis Durbin and Griffin Paige each had six stops including one solo for Durbin and three for Paige, Khye Heuerman had five tackles including one solo, Blaine Koester had four stops, Drew Vasquez had three tackles including one solo, Michael Carie, Evan Boggs, Trevor Murphy and Alex Artola each had two tackles including two solos for Carie and one each for Boggs and Artola, and Dylan Wolff and Trent Barnhart each had a tackle, each one a solo stop.

The Hearts finished their season 4-5.  They say goodbye to seniors Ethan Miller, Alec Stevenson, Payton Bushue, Tyler Myers, Matt Wohltman, Marcus Robinson, Avery Brooks, Noah Hagen, Dylan Depoister, Trevor Murphy, Jesse Mosby, Trent Barnhart, Brandon Loy, Tim Ahillen, Tritt Rush, Khye Heuerman, Zach Wilson, Blaine Koester, Alex Artola, Dylan Wolff, Brad Marschke, and Trevor Colclasure.