MISSISSIPPI VALLEY CONFERENCE BLOG
By Randy Krejci, M. V. C. Commissioner
Thursday
NO GAMES SCHEDULED
Friday
CEDAR RAPIDS KENNEDY 32, CEDAR RAPIDS JEFFERSON 0
DUBUQUE HEMPSTEAD 35, WATERLOO WEST 14
CEDAR FALLS 55,
DUBUQUE WAHLERT 21
WATERLOO EAST 22, CEDAR RAPIDS PRAIRIE 14
CEDAR RAPIDS WASHINGTON 27, IOWA CITY, CITY HIGH 24
IOWA CITY WEST 49,
CEDAR RAPIDS XAVIER 19
LINN-MAR 41, DUBUQUE SENIOR 7
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Linn-Mar 41
Dubuque Senior 7
It was the third game in the
beautiful new stadium in Marion and the Lions won again for their sixth
consecutive victory this season as the passing game and all facets of Linn-Mar
football clicked for Coach Bob Forsyth’s Lions as they took over sole
possession of the Mississippi Division of the MVC with their 41-7 pasting of
Dubuque Senior which now falls to 1-5 on the season.
Mark Atwater and Andy Henry
apparently love playing catch together and like previous contests, they hooked
up to be an offensive threat once again on Friday evening. Three touchdown passes in the first half
alone propelled Linn-Mar to a 34-0 halftime lead and the Lions and Rams traded
touchdowns in the second half to summarize the 41-7 score with Cedar Rapids
Washington waiting in the wings for a week number seven encounter with Linn-Mar
at Kingston Stadium. Linn-Mar the
sophomore contest in this encounter 24-14.
Mitch Wontack notched two
touchdowns and the second half touchdown for the Lions was produced by John
Conner when he rambled 20 yards with a fumble recovery. Senior scoring was done when Keegan Gallery
caught an eight yard touchdown pass in the fourth quarter to avoid a shutout.
Cedar Rapids Washington 27
Iowa City, City High 24
City High had won 33 straight
MVC games; the work on the field for Coach Dan Sabers’ Little Hawks has been
exemplary. At Frank Bates Field, though,
on Friday night an upset-minded Washington Warrior squad traveled to Iowa City
and put a most important seven points on the scoreboard in the final quarter
and upset second-rated City High 27-24 to put Washington back in the race for a
divisional title and certainly improved playoff chances for the Warriors.
Ryan Cain caught the final TD
pass from Braedon Tovey and with Michael Daughtery tacking on the extra point,
the Warrior Empire pulled off the stunner against City High. City High did have a first quarter lead when
Jeremy Johnson, one of the impressive offensive weapons for City High galloped
to an eleven yard touchdown run and with Crew Cornwell kicking, City High
staked a 7-0 lead going into the second quarter.
Ronald Thompson had a
touchdown run of nearly 50 yards and Cornwell had a 29 yard field goal to add
to the Little Hawks scoring. Johnson
also caught a 37 yard TD pass from Jasper Washington to total the scoring for
City High and Washington produced scoring from Tovey on a five yard keeper,
Flynn Heald (the outstanding record-setting receiver for Wash) on a one yard
run, and David Tann rushed for a touchdown along with the game clincher by Ryan
Cain.
Thompson was the leading
rusher in the game churning for 152 yards and Flynn Heald caught the most
passes (nine) for a total of eighty yards on the night.
Tony Lombardi was a pleased
coach in talking with Andy Peterson on the Football Night in Iowa scoreboard
show and talked of how they will now prepare for Linn-Mar and on the KXIC
Coaches Show on Saturday morning, Dan Sabers, described the life lessons that
all can learn from this contest and this observer knows that City High will be
ready to go the remainder of the regular season in the league.
Cedar Rapids Kennedy 32
Cedar Rapids Jefferson 0
At Kingston Stadium, on this
festive evening, the electricity was at an all-time high as the city of Cedar
Rapids was enjoying what Mayor Ron Corbett declared as BOB BROOKS DAY for the
68 –year broadcaster extraordinaire who was honored before the game at Kernels
Ballpark at Memorial Stadium and then was honored at halftime when the old, but
beautiful press box was unveiled as the “Bob Brooks Press Box.”
The Kennedy sophomores, under
the direction of long-time head sophomore coach, Matt Miers, won the
preliminary contest 19-8. Both of these
schools also had impressive quadrangular golf wins on Thursday with Kennedy
(under the direction of Mark Wilden) winning at Gates Park in Waterloo and
Jefferson (with head coach Steve Koepke) enjoying a one stroke victory over
Linn-Mar in a meet at Jones Park in Cedar Rapids.
With the famous Band of Blue
blaring the J-Hawk fight song to open the contest and get spirit at a high note
to open the contest, it was the Kennedy Cougars that drew first blood when with
just over six minutes to play in the opening quarter, senior Trevor Heitland
bolted nine yards and with a Jordan Holzer extra point, it was 7-0
Cougars. The excellent H + H + H
men—Alex Hillyer and Trevor Heitland, along with Jordan Holzer and his foot—the
Cougars gained yardage like nematodes slashing through a cornfield, but an
apparent second touchdown late in the first quarter was thwarted by an illegal
block call detected by the Joe Schmall officiating quintet. The Cougars did bounce back from the penalty
misfortune and at the 9:38 mark of the second stanza, Alex Hillyer executed a
one yard plunge to propel the Cougars to a 14-0 advantage. Alex Baxter of Jefferson had an impressive
kick-off return to rally the J-Hawks, but the offense fizzled a bit and the
J-Hawks mishandled the ball when forced to punt and Kennedy got the ball at the
Jefferson 16, On that series, Heitland
again scored from six yards out after a nice pass set up this touchdown by
quarterback James Lizarraga.
Jefferson has now lost 19
straight football games at the varsity level—longest current streak in Class
4A—and another stifled offensive series, by Jefferson, led to Alex Hillyer
scoring his second TD of the evening and Cougars were cruising 28-0 as we
neared halftime. Jefferson had a punt
attempt foiled and kicker ended up booting the football out of the end zone
resulting in a safety for a 30-0 Cougar lead at the half. The only scoring in the second half was
another 2 point safely engineered by Kennedy to make the final margin 32-0 and
give Kennedy a 3-3 record in the league.
This week, Kennedy plays Iowa
City West at Kingston on THURSDAY NIGHT and the J-Hawks travel to John Wall
Field on Friday night to face Prairie and the annual “Kolache Bowl” between two
winless teams at this point.
Iowa City West 49
Cedar Rapids Xavier 19
Perhaps the “Battle of the
Boot” is long forgotten and steps are being taken by Coach Brian Sauser to keep
the Trojans moving forward in a positive fashion and if last Friday night was
any indication, the West High Trojans are coming on very strong as we enter the
final third of the regular season and they beat a very good Xavier High School
program by a 49-19 score in Iowa City.
West High played an
impressive first half and mounted a 34-6 lead at the intermission holding Xavier
to two field goals by Chad Gilmer to pace the action. West High got touchdowns from Richard Bryant
(two), two by Mondo Williams receiving on passing from Charles Rogers, the ISU
recruit for 2012, and Zach Brown on a four yard run. Rogers also had a 68 yard run by himself on a
play from scrimmage and his quarterback position. Matt Hansen scored both second half
touchdowns for the Xavier Saints and they did have over 300 yards offensively
on the night for Coach Duane Schulte’s squad.
Reggie Schulte completed 5 of 6 passes for 56 yards but had no
touchdowns through the air.
Waterloo East 22
Cedar Rapids Prairie 14
East High has four regular
season victories on the year for the first time this century. Though behind at halftime, 14-8, the East High
defense shut out the Hawks in the second half and came through with an eight
point victory and pushed their record to 4-2 on the year and in a solid third
place in the Valley Division of the MVC.
Prairie falls to 0-6 and has a date with winless Jefferson next week at
Prairie on Friday evening.
Corshundous Love was the star
for East and had 117 yards tallied for the evening. Running was the name of the game; junior
quarterback Desmond Van Arsdale had 112 yards on the ground and the final
player of this stupendous trio—Aaron Taylor—factored in for 105 yards rushing.
Prairie could only muster 44
total yards in the second half. The
Prairie touchdowns in the first half came from Cameron Rathje on a two-yard run
with Austin Reutzel on the point after and Jared Wagner on a TD pass from
Peyton Wagner.
Cedar Falls 55
Dubuque Wahlert 21
Cedar Falls, top ranked, and playing
in the UNI-Dome where they continue to be highly successful, led from start to
finish in this contest with a tough Dubuque Wahlert squad, a team that has
already doubled their win output from the 2010 season. Once again, a major impact player was Barkley
Hill. For the sixth consecutive game he
has topped 200 yards on the ground and in this encounter he had four touchdowns
registered.
Brady Williams caught a 20
yard TD pass from all-sports star, Riley McCarron, for the first of the three
touchdowns registered by Wahlert. Sam
Koenig rushed for two touchdowns and on 18 carries he had 116 yards on the
evening.
Ike Boettger, for the
top-ranked Tigers, doesn’t always pass that much, but tonight was 12 for 15 and
threw for an impressive 170 yards. Brady
Williams for Wahlert was the best receiver of all and five players for Cedar
Falls hauled in passes to help push Cedar Falls’ record to 6-0 including Jake
Gallu, James Harrington, Ben Challgren (who also had a great interception),
Brennan Block, and Barkley Hill.
Cedar Falls will try and go
7-0 after next week when they play at Waterloo West and Wahlert now follows
playing Cedar Falls with Iowa City, City High on the road next Friday
evening. City High will try and rebound
from their upset with Washington last Friday.
Dubuque Hempstead 35
Waterloo West 14
Dubuque Hempstead got a
welcomed victory on their home turf Friday with a 35-14 win over winless
Waterloo West. Hempstead was also
looking for their first victory of the 2011 campaign.
Hempstead led by a 21-7
margin at halftime and West High closed to within seven points after the third
quarter when Elliott Moeller caught a 43 yard touchdown pass from Shawn Bowers,
but Jacob Hodge scored his third TD of the game in the fourth quarter and
Connor Ehlers caught a 15 yard touchdown pass from Luke Ploessl to ensure the
Mustang win. Alex Smith also scored on a
TD pass from Ploessl in the first quarter and 389 yards of offense was rolled
up in Hempstead’s first victory.
This intra-conference battle
pitted a team from the Mississippi Division (Waterloo West) against one of the
Valley Division (Hempstead) and now West plays at home next Friday against
top-ranked Cedar Falls and Hempstead will battle city-rival Dubuque Senior at
Dalzell Field.
