Host Liberty completes late comeback with field goal to beat Lee’s Summit North

It’s not too often in high school football that we get to call the kicker the hero. But on Friday night, Liberty Blue Jays kicker Alex Rottjakb was most certainly just that.

Liberty looked dead and buried. After a stellar first half, the Blue Jays found themselves down 35-21 to the Lee’s Summit North Broncos with just 14 minutes left in the game.

But a swift fourth-quarter comeback was capped by a 48-yard field goal from Rottjakb with just one minute remaining to give the Blue Jays a 38-35 win over Lee’s Summit North.

“I came to the sideline and I was sitting with my buddy Jalen Weston and he was looking at it and I couldn’t look,” said Liberty running back Wentric Williams III. “So I was like ‘Jalen, I can’t look, bro, I’m just going to watch your facial expressions.’ It was just so hype.”

Despite not being the one to record the winning points, Williams was a big reason Liberty found itself in position to win. The junior running back hauled in both of Liberty’s touchdowns in the fourth quarter as the Blue Jays scored 17 unanswered points in the final 11 minutes.

“I knew at the beginning of the game that it was going to be a slow game for me,” Williams said. “That’s not technically the mentality I had, but I knew they were going to do everything in their power to stop me.

“So I stayed humble, kept running hard and just waited for my turn and when it came I took advantage of it.”

Williams recorded 215 total yards. He was one of the game’s stars for the Blue Jays, after quarterback Luke Smith and wide receiver Caden Dennis had soared in the first half.

Before the Broncos blew the game wide open in the third quarter, the teams were tied at 21 at halftime, and Smith and Dennis had done much of the damage.

The pair connected just four times in the game but connected for 156 yards and two touchdowns. Dennis also ran home a 42-yard touchdown on a slick reverse play that gave the Blue Jays a 14-7 lead.

“We had some matchups with Caden, and he did a good job running routes and making plays,” Liberty coach Chad Frigon said.

The biggest play between the pair came late in the first half, when Smith found Dennis for a 79-yard touchdown on third-and-9 deep in Liberty territory.

With the pocket slowly tightening around Smith, and options running out, he saw Dennis deep down the field. Smith sent a perfect pass straight into his hands. And then the magic happened.

Receiving the ball at the Lee’s Summit North 40-yard line, Dennis broke one tackle, then another, then managed to stay inbounds and jog the ball into the end zone for the 21-14 lead.

But a pair of Lee’s Summit North touchdowns in the third quarter seemed to have left the Blue Jays with little hope. Broncos quarterback Tre Baker and wide receiver Logan Muckey put on a show of their own, connecting on eight occasions for 189 yards and two touchdowns. Baker finished with 311 yards and three TDs.

Williams’ two touchdowns put the game back in the balance and a fourth-and-5 stop by the Blue Jays at midfield set up Liberty’s comeback.

“Every day in practice, we go back to the ball on the 32 and we try to get him a 50-yarder before we quit — every single day,” Frigon said of his kicker, Rottjakb. “So we felt really confident with it with what he had.”

And on this night, the ball sailed between the uprights when it mattered most. And an interception by middle backer Michael Quigley sealed it for the hosts.

This story was originally published September 11, 2020 at 11:03 PM.