Eisenhower pulls off playoff upset of Kapaun

As Eisenhower senior Drake Damon rounded up his offensive linemen to join him for a postgame interview on Friday night at Cessna Stadium, the crowd around him swelled until every teammate crowded around him to listen and cheer.

For Damon, it was necessary to include his teammates in the spotlight after Eisenhower beat Kapaun Mount Carmel 20-14 to earn the Tigers’ first playoff win in school history —in their first playoff appearance.

“We’re a team, we’re a family,” Damon said. “It’s all we talk about. We break down to it. We won as a family.… It’s huge. First playoff game in Eisenhower history and then we win it, as a family. I love this team, man.”

Eisenhower (6-4) will play at Maize South (8-2) next Friday. Eisenhower beat Maize South 29-20 on Sept. 18.

Damon “is the embodiment of what you want,” Eisenhower coach Marc Marinelli said. “He’s a team guy. He practices hard. He runs the weight room hard. He leads us every day.”

It was Damon who sparked the Tigers early in the second quarter in the scoreless game after teammate Ryan Hobbs blocked Kapaun’s 23-yard field goal attempt. Damon picked the football up at the seven and raced 93 yards for the touchdown.

“There’s nobody better to catch a ball in the open field than No. 6,” Marinelli said of Damon. “The kid is very special. He’s so electric. He never stops running.”

Kapaun tied the score on Brock Monty’s 38-yard pass to Colter Hullings with 3:58 to go in the first half, but 30 seconds later, Damon caught a pass over the middle from Mason Madzey and raced to a 53-yard touchdown.

Eisenhower didn’t play a flawless game, though. While Addison Logan had a team-high 70 rushing yards, he fumbled twice. Madzey was intercepted by Jacob Gomez with 3:52 remaining as Eisenhower clung to its six-point lead.

But the Tigers didn’t crumble.

“We could have,” Marinelli said. “Every playoff game has a moment where you can either dig deep or give up. We had a couple of those tonight.”

Eisenhower followed Madzey’s interception by recovering a Kapaun fumble two plays into the possession. And even when the Tigers were forced to punt and gave the ball to Kapaun with 45 seconds to go, they didn’t falter.

“We have really good secondary guys,” Marinelli said. “At that moment I was probably as comfortable as I could be. You’re going against Brock, who is unbelievable. Those receivers are great.”

In the final 45 seconds, it was senior Nick Henning making the big play, intercepting Monty to seal the win.

“We got a good pass rush, and Nick did what he did and broke on the ball,” Marinelli said.

“That was the biggest play of the game, in my eyes,” Madzey said.

Eisenhower scored the go-ahead touchdown on Madzey’s seven-yard pass to Kyle McGreevy with 10:37 to go.

It was a difficult finish for Monty, who was a four-year starter for Kapaun.

“We’re a better football team than that,” said Monty, who threw for more than 2,000 yards this season but was 7-of-19 passing Friday for 97 yards. “They outplayed us.”

Kapaun coach Dan Adelhardt agreed.

“Our kids played hard, but we didn’t execute,” he said.

This story was originally published November 6, 2015 at 11:38 PM with the headline "Eisenhower pulls off playoff upset of Kapaun."