An incredible season came to a crushing end.
The Cambridge football team, who entered the playoffs undefeated as the No. 1 seed, was upset 27-0 by Belleville, the No. 8 seed, on Friday at Cambridge High School in level one of the playoffs.
The Wildcats (5-6 overall) took advantage of four Cambridge (9-1) turnovers to pull off the upset.
“We had four turnovers against a decent team from the SWAL, and they just play a different brand of football than what we are used to,” Cambridge football coach Rob Nelles said. “We were able to drive for the most part, but the turnovers absolutely killed us, and you just can’t do that in a level one game.”
Cambridge was driving down the field on its opening possession before a fumble ended the drive in Belleville territory.
Belleville took advantage of the fumble, going on a long touchdown drive that resulted in a 3-yard touchdown run from Logan Derke.
On Cambridge’s second possession, another fumble gave the ball back to the Wildcats and Belleville took advantage. Derke scored on a 5-yard run to put Belleville up 13-0.
“After that second fumble, you could feel the energy leave our team,” Nelles said.
Derke proved to be a difficult back for Cambridge to stop. Derke, who also scored on a 23-yard run in the fourth quarter, rushed for over 200 yards in the win for Belleville.
Brennan Keyes, who also rushed for 46 yards for Belleville, scored on a 4-yard rush in the third quarter.
Along with the two fumbles, Cambridge had two other costly turnovers in Belleville territory.
Sam Arndt picked off a Cambridge pass in the end zone and a Belleville punt bounced off a Cambridge player, which was recovered by the Wildcats.
Not only did the Belleville defense create key turnovers, the Wildcats also shut down Cambridge’s passing attack. Belleville held Cambridge senior quarterback Matt Buckman to just 116 yards of passing, the lowest yardage mark of the season.
“Their defensive backs were better than we thought they were, and they shut down our passing game,” Nelles said.
While the Blue Jays came up short in accomplishing a team goal of a deep playoff run, the 2024 season for Cambridge was quite successful.
The Blue Jays won the Eastern Suburban Conference and beat conference rivals Marshall, Waterloo and Deerfield.
Cambridge also accomplished its number goal this year, according to Nelles.
“Our number one program goal is to create good sons, and we certainly accomplished that this year,” Nelles said. “We had zero distractions from any of them. They passed all of their classes, they behaved in class, they were great to work with.”
Cambridge finishes the year with a record of 9-1. The Blue Jays graduate 12 seniors in Matthew Buckman, Kiefer Parish, Drew Holzhueter, Ben Fisher, Nick Ellickson, Kyle Polster, Clayton Stenjem, Arden Vendeneide, Aiden Sperle, Garrett Wendricks, Arshenyo Chen and Bryce Duckert.
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