Clear Creek Amana senior Jared EckrichYour Prep Sports  The Clear Creek Amana football team ran its record to 4-0 on Friday night, almost literally. 
The Clippers ran the football almost exclusively on their way to a 44-0 drubbing of Maquoketa on the road.
Clear Creek Amana finished with 344 yards, including 326 on the ground. The defense also did its part by holding Maquoketa to just 103 total yards.
“We had a pretty good game,” Clear Creek Amana head coach Matt Hughes said. “Both sides of the ball were hitting on all cylinders. It was a fun game and an easy game to coach.”
When a team wins by such a large margin, it is easy to get caught up in the offensive numbers. But much of Clear Creek Amana’s success this season has been the result of a tenacious defense.
“Our defense has been what has kept us moving to this point,” said Hughes, who played linebacker at Iowa from 1995-98. “They were again tonight they did a really good job of being relentless and had a great pass rush and a good run defense.  
“Defensively I couldn’t even give you a name of who stood out because the whole group just did a fantastic job of playing together as a team.”
Even without injured senior running back Drake Brezina, Clear Creek was able to dominate Maquoketa on the ground. The Clippers won easily despite only completing one pass, which just so happened to result in a touchdown.
“Our offense turned it on tonight, too, we had a great running attack as well,” Hughes said. “We only completed one pass and scored a touchdown but I think we only threw it maybe three or four times the whole game. Jared Eckrich had a really good game at tailback as well as Matt Brimeyer a couple of the guys that have carried the load since Drake Brezina went down. Ashton Carpenter had a nice touchdown pass to Grant Riggan in I believe the third quarter.”
Despite his team’s dominance on both sides of the line of scrimmage, Hughes is always thinking of ways his team can improve.
He is pleased with his team’s 4-0 record heading into district play next Friday, but he wants his players to stayed focused on the next challenge.
“We’re really happy to be 4-0,” Hughes said. “But our philosophy the whole year has been to every week erase the past and every week we’re just trying to go 1-0.  Even though we had a great win tonight there’s definitely things we can improve on and we’re going to have to keep improving every week.”                                     CCA 
First Downs                  18                     Rushes-Yards                40-326               Passing Yards                20                   Comp-Att-Int                1-6-0               Fumbles-Lost                1-1                       Penalties-Yards             4-15                    CCA             13  14  10  7  –  44  Maquoketa   0     0   0   0  –   0CCA – Matt Brimeyer 9 run (kick no good)CCA – Cade Gallagher 7 run (Tyreke Williams kick)CCA – Jared Eckrich 25 run (Tyreke Williams kick)CCA – Grant Riggan 20 pass from Ashton Carpenter (Tyreke Williams kick)CCA – Tyreke Williams 35 field goalCCA – Jared Eckrich run (Tyreke Williams kick)CCA – Cade Gallagher 6 run (Seth Mass kick)
Rushing – CCA: Matt Brimeyer 15-111, Jared Eckrich 6-97, Cade Gallagher 7-53, Grant Riggan 7-50, Corey Siders 3-15, David Jensen 2-5. Passing – CCA: Ashton Carpenter 1-4-1 20, Dylan Sheehy 0-2. Receiving – CCA: Grant Riggan 1-20.