Photo Credit: David Smith/Special to PrepsKC 
Grain Valley needed a stop in the worst way.
The Eagles were ahead of Raytown 21-14 midway through the fourth period, but the Blue Jays were at the Grain Valley 26-yard line and were dominating the time of possession.
A tired Grain Valley defense needed just one more stop against the Blue Jays on fourth-and-3. Up to that point, Raytown had converted on all six of its fourth-down attempts.
Senior defensive end Jake Allen tackled running back Freddy Ersery for just a 1-yard gain and a turnover on downs at the 25. That big defensive play helped spark the Eagles in a 28-14 victory Friday at Moody Murry Memorial Field at Grain Valley High School.
“Our defense was on the field a lot tonight,” said Grain Valley head coach David Allie, whose defense was on the field for 32 minutes and 38 seconds. “Hats off to (Raytown) and hats off to our kids for being resilient.
“That play shows what our defense is about. Jake shed his block, made the stick and our guys rallied around it.”
The Eagles improved to 7-2 with the win and not only won the Suburban White Conference championship with a 4-0 league record, they earned a first-round bye and a No. 1 seed in the Class 5 District 7 tournament.
“We got a couple linebackers banged up,” Allie said. “It’s nice to have that time off and heal a little bit.”
On Allen’s big tackle, he was lined up against Raytown’s 6-foot-7, 345 pound left tackle Logan Reichert, who is a four-star recruit according to rivals.com and has committed to the University of Missouri. Even in a tough matchup, Allen beat Reichert for the biggest tackle of the game.
“He’s an animal out there,” Grain Valley junior Brody Baker said of Allen. “He was lined up against one of the best linemen in this area. We put Jake on him for a reason.”
Grain Valley started off sluggish on both sides of the ball as Raytown scored on a 5-yard run from quarterback Nathan Whitebear, who bobbled the snap but found a lot of running room on the left anyway for a 7-0 lead at the 6:44 mark in the second period.
That Raytown drive was aided by two fourth down conversions, including a fake punt on fourth-and-15 that resulted in a 26 yards pass from Whitebear to Travon Johnson.
After the drive, Baker shouted at his defensive teammates to try and get them fired up, telling them “not to put their heads down” and “we are better than them.”
“My job is to keep the team in the game,” Baker said. “We are a family out there. I just got to let them know what we need to do better and when we get down on ourselves, I got to let them know we don’t need to.”
Baker’s motivational speech seemed to work as Grain Valley held Raytown to just 7 points the rest of the way.
Grain Valley responded following a rare field goal miss from Austin Schmitt from 27 yards out. The Eagles forced a three-and-out to get one final possession before the end of the first half.
Grain Valley senior Noah Olah, who dropped an open pass earlier in the drive that likely would have been a touchdown, overcame adversity to make a big catch on fourth-and-6 as he hauled in a 39-yard TD pass from Caleb Larson with 40.2 seconds left to tie the game at 7-all going into halftime.
The Eagles came out hot in the second half as junior Ty Williams broke a 70-yard scoring run up the middle on the first play from scrimmage in the second half to put his team up 14-7.
Raytown responded on its next drive with a drive that lasted 7 minutes and 14 seconds. Raytown converted on two fourth-down plays once again as Whitebear hit Ersery on a 14-yard pass on fourth-and-11 on a fake punt. On fourth-and-25, Whitebear connected with Johnson for a 32-yard TD pass on a fly route to the right side to tie the game at 14-14 with 4:31 left in the third.
“The casinos are open every day because going for fourth down and making it every time is just not sustainable,” Raytown head coach Mike Hedrick said. “We have to do a better job on first, second and third down.”
That did not deter the Grain Valley offense from responding as Williams scored on a 2-yard run that was setup by Larson’s 39-yard pass to Olah on the play prior for a 21-14 lead at the 2:22 mark in the third.
After Allen made his big stop on Raytown’s ensuing drive, Williams put the game away with his third score of the night, as he broke two tackles on a 6-yard TD run with 4:32 as he finished with 160 yards on 11 carries.
Grain Valley stopped Raytown on the next drive on fourth down once again and ran out the rest of the clock to punch its ticket to a first-round bye.
The Blue Jays fell to 5-4 and will be the No. 2 seed in the Class 5 District 7 tournament and they will face the Truman Patriots in the first-round next week.
