Diamond's season ends at hands of Pierce City

PIERCE CITY, Mo. — In the Class 1 District 3 opener at Don Keebaugh Stadium in Pierce City, the Diamond Wildcats saw their season come to a close on Friday night.The fourth-seeded Eagles got off to a quick start scoring on each of their first five drives on the way to a 34-0 lead.The No. 5-seed Wildcats’ two fourth-quarter scores wouldn’t be enough as they dropped to 0-9 on the season in a 41-14 final. Pierce City improves to 5-5 overall and will face top-seeded Marionville at 7 p.m Friday in Marionville.The Eagles fell to the Blue Comets 36-10 to end the regular season. Now they’ll seek revenge in the postseason.Pierce City was without quarterback Dyllan Kleiboeker in that regular season meeting but he will be back on the field for the postseason. Kleiboeker injured his knee early in the year and missed the last six games of the season.When the Eagles and Wildcats met on Oct.16 in week eight of the regular season, the Eagles won 21-3 without Kleiboeker.Game actionAfter forcing Diamond to punt, Pierce City was set up on its own 2-yard line for its first drive of the game. And a false start before the first play moved it back a yard.Kleiboeker then connected on three straight passes to targets Landen Stanphill, Luke Eaton and Landon Iman in that order. The pass to Iman went for 32 yards and put the Eagles on Diamond’s 40-yard line.Four plays later, Kleiboeker hit Iman for a 24-yard score to make it 6-0 with 7:29 left in the opening frame. Brock Flehmer’s point-after kick was good as the Eagles grabbed a 7-0 lead.Diamond went three-and-out on its next drive and in four plays and 50 seconds, Pierce City was back in the end zone. This time, Kleiboeker connected with his running back Max Brown on a swing pass out of the backfield for a 7-yard score.The next scoring drive took 1:14 seconds to go 51 yards. Kleiboeker earned his third touchdown pass of the game as he found senior Lincoln Jones on a slant from 12 yards out to go up 21-0.Kleiboeker added two more passing scores before halftime as he hit Landon Day for a 52-yard score and then Iman for a 43-yard strike. The pass to Day was over the top of single coverage down the sideline that Day caught in stride and trotted into the end zone for the score.Pierce City’s junior gunslinger finished his night at halftime with 311 yards passing while completing 15 of 18 attempts. He also ran three times for 7 yards.At halftime, Iman had eight catches for 212 yards and two touchdowns. Brown ran the ball five times for 39 yards.To start the second half, sophomore quarterback Kellen Avondet led the Eagles on a scoring drive of 50 yards. He completed all three pass attempts on the drive. The first was to Eaton for 7 yards, then to Iman for 4 and finally a 15-yard touchdown over the top to a wide open Eaton in the end zone.Running back Walker Earl added two carries for 19 yards on that drive.Diamond responded late in the game with a 34-yard touchdown run by quarterback Giancarlo Martinez. He later ran one in from 2 yards out as well to make it 41-14.