Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Football games for Class 4A teams in Iowa start to count next week.  

Sure, every game goes on a team’s record but the opening of district play next Friday is when games really begin to matter.

Try telling that to anyone in Iowa City this week.

There is more than just a win on the line on Friday when cross-town rivals West High (3-0) and City High (1-2) meet for the 49th time in the regular season in the annual Battle for the Boot at Frank Bates Field.

The annual cross-town showdown isn’t a district game and carries no post-season weight but brings with it bragging rights, pride and everything else that comes with a rivalry contest.

“Everyone in the school is looking up to you, this whole side of town is looking at you,” City High senior running back Davonte Foster said. “All week people come up to you and say, ‘We need you, we need that Boot’.”

For years the cross-town rivals met in a Mississippi Valley Conference showdown.

When Class 4A went to district scheduling in 2014 the annual Battle for the Boot showdown became a non-district game.

That distinction hasn’t changed much in a rivalry that ranks among the best in the state.

“Last year I got the full effect of it and it was one of the best atmospheres I played in all of last year including playing in the UNI-Dome,” West High junior safety Cole Mabry said. “It was really special.”

The rivalry has it all.

Two perennial state powers located on opposite sides of a town that supports its high school athletics.

Mix everything together and you have a rivalry that has grown each year since it began in 1969.

“Both programs have had success, it’s got everything that a good rivalry is supposed to have,” City High coach Dan Sabers said. “We know we have our work cut out for us that’s for sure.”

Adding to the intrigue has been a strong dose of parity over the past half of a decade.

City High won seven straight in the series from 2005 to 2011 all by at least two touchdowns.

West High halted that streak with a 44-0 win in 2012 and three of the last four games have been decided by less than two touchdowns.  

City High has won all three of those tight games, including a 20-7 victory last season at West High, the first win for a road team in the series since 2010.

“My class hasn’t won the Boot since we’ve been here so it’s motivating us to want to get it back,” Mabry said. “Anytime you don’t have it you definitely want to get it back.”

For the second straight season West High enters the Battle for the Boot the higher ranked team and a perceived favorite.

The Trojans are experienced, with 17 starters back from last year’s 4A runner-up, and battled tested, fresh off a 32-31 win at No. 8 Cedar Falls last week.

“They are so experienced and you can just see it,” Sabers said. “Their quarterback is tough so we are going to have our hands full no doubt about it.”

Despite entering lower ranked each of the past two seasons City High brings a two-game winning streak into Friday’s meeting.

City High won the last meeting at Bates Field 14-12 in 2015 before its 20-7 win last year that gave the Little Hawks the first back-to-back wins in the series since they won seven straight from 2005 to 2011.

“This week means everything to us, this is what we’ve been talking about since the start of camp, all summer, all year,” Foster said. “We’ve been looking forward to this as little kids, sixth-graders, seventh-graders you always want to play in the Boot game.”