CREIGHTON — Lane Bybee has only been with St. Mary’s for about two months now.
At halftime, down 28-24, he stood in the middle of the Cardinals’ circle, yelling at his team, trying to get them going in the second half.
His leadership has been big all season, and it was big again in the second half. The Cardinals outscored the Creighton Bulldogs 42-0 in that second half and advanced to 4-0 behind a 66-28 win in Creighton on Friday.
“(Bybee) was basically saying what we were all saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got to wake up a little bit,’” St. Mary’s coach Tony Allen said. “Maybe we were patting ourselves a little bit too much on the back after the last three games. And we came in thinking that it was going to be like the last couple of games, and they kind of punched us in the mouth repeatedly.
“And they were by far the better team for the first quarter and a half. … And the thing I really like about (Bybee) is coming from a different school; he’s only been with these guys for not even two months. But that just shows the chemistry of the guys. They brought him in, he fits in great, and they responded to him even though they’ve only known him for a couple of months.”
The response to that first half was immediate for the Cardinals.
On the first drive of the second half, St. Mary’s quarterback Gage Hedstrom led his team down the field. On a third-and-10 from the Cardinals’ 30, Hedstrom scrambled for 12 yards to extend the drive.
Immediately following, Hedstrom found Bybee for a 26-yard completion down to the Bulldogs’ 11, where he took it in to score a minute and 29 seconds into the second half.
Bybee has truly been a perfect fit in the St. Mary’s system. He finished the night with 62 yards on three catches with a touchdown. He also forced a fumble immediately following the Cardinals’ first touchdown drive of the second half, which eventually led to Hedstrom finding Ben Barlow to give St. Mary’s a quick 14-0 jump out of the break.
“Normally, we go into halftime, I kind of give our speeches,” Hedstrom said. “But Lane came in and he hypoed us up. He came in, new guy, but he’s already a part of our brotherhood. He’s got the right to get in there and chew our butts. He came in there like ‘that’s not our Cardinal brand of football.’
“Our defense was not there in the first half. We get the ball back, we get three-and-outs, we score. We get three-and-outs, we score. He just told us, ‘Go back to our fundamentals and do your job.’”
Part of that job included four forced turnovers in the latter half of the game for the Cardinals, and an explosion on offense.
Coming into the game, Allen said it was just a matter of time before Barlow got going. After going for more than 1,000 receiving yards as a sophomore, Barlow had a slow start to his junior season, with 10 catches for 108 yards and two touchdowns through three weeks.
On Friday, Barlow more than doubled his production, catching eight passes for 131 yards and four touchdowns.
“With him, you just never know when it will be,” Allen said. “Even during the game, you never know when he’s going to break loose. I thought he played a great game. Gage did a great job of finding him. The line gave Gage more time in the second half. I think they got a little tired, and our kids started to capitalize on that a little bit. Ben has got beautiful hands, he runs great routes, and this was the first time this year he’s had a chance to catch and run with it.”
For Barlow, the night wasn’t about himself and what he accomplished.
Instead, he chose to give credit to his quarterback.
“My quarterback,” said Barlow, on what worked for him on Friday. “Gage always puts it on a rope, which is nice. Some days it’s me open, some days it’s Lane, some days it’s James (Eby). It’s whoever. Any of our top six receivers could do that on any given night; it just happened to be me tonight.”
Barlow was appropriately bullish on his quarterback, who finished with 11 carries for 150 rushing yards and two touchdowns. Through the air, Hedstrom finished 15 for 22, throwing for 224 yards and six touchdowns.
Hedstrom is coming off an all-state season and continues his reign as one of the best eight-man players in the state. And the scary thing for opposing teams is he’s only going to continue to get better as the year progresses.
“This year, (I’m) way more comfortable in the pocket,” Hedstrom said. “Obviously, all my linemen and receivers are a year older. I’ve got three or four great linemen; you aren’t getting in on them. They give me a lot of time, and I’m able to see the whole field. And then I’ve got guys like Ben and James. And I’ve got a 6-foot-4 receiver (with Bybee) coming over the middle. I mean, I do have some good throws sometimes, but a lot of the time they’re wide open.”
That’s quite the humble approach, especially when Hedstrom was such a massive piece in keeping St Mary’s in a competitive first half.
Creighton started the game with a 36-yard touchdown run by quarterback Ethan Kuhl. Hedstrom responded with a 64-yard touchdown run on the Cardinals’ very first play of the game.
The Bulldogs were able to balloon their lead to 22-8 after Robinson Ladeaux caught a 20-yard touchdown from Kuhl, and Karter Gragert ran one in from three yards out. But Hedstrom found Barlow for a 60-yard touchdown to bring his team back within six.
Creighton scored once more to bring the game to 28-16, with a three-yard touchdown rush from Kuhl. The Bulldogs then recovered an onside kick, but Keigan Couch intercepted Kuhl, leading to another touchdown response by Hedstrom.
Creighton dropped to 2-2 on the season. Kuhl had a very up-and-down game. He showed flashes in a night; he finished 16 for 24 passing for 193 yards and a touchdown, but threw four interceptions.
He also had 59 yards on 13 carries that included two touchdowns. Kuhl got hurt early, but chose to power through. Kuhl is exceptional as a dual-threat QB, and being hampered by an injury kept him more attached to the pocket.
“He’s a competitor,” Creighton coach Holden Wetzler said. “He did a lot of really good things, but also did some negative things too. We’ve just got to clean it up. We’ve got to limit our turnovers; we’ve had far too many of them. We’ve got to take care of the ball a little bit better.
Part of getting better is winning in the trenches. The Bulldogs have four games left in their season, with the next one coming against Elgin Public/Pope John at home.
In preparation for that game, hitting and getting into better shape will be on the docket for practice this coming week.
“It starts up front,” Wetzler said. “We did not block well up front in the second half. We struggled to run the ball, and when we dropped back to pass, we had pressure there. That wasn’t our only problem. I think leadership goes a long way. We need a couple of leaders to step up and make plays.”
For St. Mary’s, Friday’s win moves them to 4-0 on the season. Falling behind in the first half was the first time the Cardinals trailed a team all year long.
Their response showed perseverance and an ability to punch back when they get punched first. It’s also the kind of win that might matter more in November than it does in September.
“I said, ‘Hey, sometimes a game like this — this is a game that gets you to Lincoln,’” Allen said. “Because maybe we thought we were a little too good coming in here. And good teams like these guys will smack you in the mouth. But we proved to ourselves, when the chips are down, we can respond, and respond in a big way. I said, ‘This game could carry us to that level that we want to be at, but we can’t be satisfied, and we’ve got to continue getting better every single week.’”
Creighton (2-2) 16 12 0 0 – 28
St. Mary’s (4-0) 8 16 36 6 – 66
CRE: Ethan Kuhl 36 rush (Karter Gragert rush), 11:01.
STM: Gage Hedstrom 64 rush (James Eby pass from Hedstrom), 10:43.
CRE: Robinson Ladeaux 20 pass from Kuhl (Kuhl rush), 6:11.
CRE: Gragert 3 rush (2-pt no good), 9:25.
STM: Ben Barlow 60 pass from Hedstrom (Barlow pass from Hedstrom), 9:00.
CRE: Kuhl 3 rush (2-pt no good), 7:31.
STM: Hedstrom 1 rush (Barlow pass from Hedstrom).
STM: Hedstrom 11 rush (Hedstrom rush), 10:31.
STM: Barlow 3 pass from Hedstrom (Barlow pass from Hedstrom), 8:38.
STM: Barlow 24 pass from Hedstrom (2-pt no good), 3:40.
STM: Barlow 28 pass from Hedstrom (Hedstrom rush), 1:48.
STM: Eby 14 pass from Hedstrom (2-pt no good), 1:31.
STM: Lane Bybee 17 pass from Hedstrom (2-pt no good), 11:54.