Clarkson/Leigh's season ends with playoff loss to Creighton

Clarkson/Leigh's season to remember came to an end Wednesday evening as the Patriots lost 52-12 at Creighton in the second round of the playoffs.

The Bulldogs led 14-6 at the end of one and outscored Clarkson/Leigh 14-6 in the second quarter to take a 28-12 lead into the locker room.

Creighton shutout the Patriots 18-0 in the third quarter to go up 46-12 at the end of three.

The Bulldogs won the fourth quarter 6-0.

Kobe Paprocki had 103 yards rushing on 24 carries, and scored once.

Bradley Bunner made a team-high 11 tackles while Seth Thompson and Tyrell Pokorney had 8 apiece.

Clarkson/Leigh totaled 244 yards of offense, 195 coming on the ground.

It was a very good season for the Patriots, who finished 8-2. The only disappointment of the season, in my opinion, was the loss to Humphrey/Lindsay Holy Family, otherwise Clarkson/Leigh did some amazing things this season.

The big win over Howells-Dodge is something these players will no doubt remember for a long time. The Patriots posted some big wins this season.

Ben McMullin, Paprocki, Thompson, Colby Becker, Brandon Steffensmeier, Dominik Harper, Jake Paprocki, Tony Cuyler, Pokorney, Shane Svoboda, Brody Boyd, and Kolton Held are all lost to graduation.

12 seniors is quite a bit to lose for an 8-man team, and these 12 seniors meant a lot to this year's team for sure.

Bunner, Jacob Gall, Garrett Sayers, Tony Bruhn, and others return for Clarkson/Leigh next season.

The Patriots don't have a ton of returning talent as a lot of it is lost, but they still have Bunner, and he should help shoulder the load for this team next season.

It will be difficult for next year's team to duplicate what this year's team did, but a foundation for success has been laid by this year's senior class.

Clarkson/Leigh had about as good a season as they could have this year, and there's a lot for future teams to live up to.

I'm sure the Patriots wish they could have advanced farther in the playoffs, but it's just how things go sometimes. I think Clarkson/Leigh was better than a second round playoff team, but they had a really tough task in trying to beat Creighton. I think this team was easily a quarterfinal team, but they drew a low seed, and that made things difficult.