By Tyler Devine
Your Prep Sports

MOUNT PLEASANT – After a disappointing start to last season the Clear Creek-Amana football team began the 2016 season on the right foot.

The Clippers upended Mount Pleasant on the road Friday night 23-8, leading throughout the contest.

Clear Creek-Amana head coach Matt Hughes admitted to some struggles early on, but was pleased with the overall performance of his team.

Clear Creek Amana senior Drake Brezina“We struggled a bit in the first quarter trying to figure out what our identity was,” Hughes said. “But we kind of fell back on Clear Creek-Amana football I think which is running the ball. Drake Brezina had almost 200 yards rushing. Matt Brimeyer, his backup, had almost 100. I think we had almost 300 yards rushing (as a team).”

Brezina finished with 199 yards on 22 carries and two touchdowns and Brimeyer added 73 yards as the Clippers rolled up 308 yards on the ground.

Clear Creek Amana took a 13-0 halftime lead on a pair of second-quarter touchdown runs by Brezina.

The senior tailback started the scoring with a 9-yard scoring jaunt and added a 58-yard touchdown run to make it 13-0.

Being ahead the entire game, the Clippers never felt the need to rely on its passing game and were able to stick to their brand of football.

“It was a really good performance for our offensive line and our backs and I’ll tell you what, it was an all-around great performance,” Hughes said. “Our receivers were blocking well, we didn’t have a lot of time to get our passing game going very well but fortunately for our offensive line we didn’t really need to complete a lot of passes because we were doing a good job in the trenches.”

Hughes also attributed much of Clear Creek-Amana’s success on Friday to the performance of the defense, which did not allow any points until the waning minutes of the game.

Clear Creek Amana held Mount Pleasant to 16 yards rushing and 146 yards of total offense in the game.

“It was probably one of the best defensive performances I’ve seen in my three, going on four years,” Hughes said. “Our defensive front just did an amazing job. I think we had over ten sacks in the game. They were just relentless, they kept coming after the quarterback and they tackled well.

“And obviously we made some mistakes. There are some things we can do better and learn from, but it’s week one.”

                         CCA         MP
First Downs        16           10
Rushing Yards    308         16
Passing Yards     22         130
Comp-Att-Int      3-9-1      8-14-0
Fumbles-Lost      1-1         1-1
Penalties-Yards    5-45       10-90

Clear Creek Amana   0  13  0 10 – 23
Mt. Pleasant               0  0    0  8  – 8

CCA – Drake Brezina 9 run (Tyreke Williams kick)
CCA – Brezina 58 run (kick no good)
CCA – Williams 32 field goal
MP – 55 pass from Zach Beason (2 pt. good Pat Canby pass from Zach Beason)
CCA – Cory Siders 9 pass from Ashton Carpenter (Williams kick)

Rushing – CCA: Drake Brezina 21-199, Matt Brimeyer 11-73. MP Pat Canby 5-10
Passing – CCA: Ashton Carpenter 3-9-1 22. MP: Zach Beason 8-14-1 130.
Receiving – CCA: Cory Siders 1-9.