Your Prep Sports

Entering the season the big challenge facing first-year West Branch offensive coordinator John Hierseman was finding a way to replace the school’s all-time leading rusher Luke Lenoch.

Six weeks into the season Hierseman was faced with finding a temporary replacement for Lenoch’s replacement.

Senior receiver Jacob Graves rushed for 179 yards and two touchdowns in his first start at running back in replace of injured sophomore Tanner Lukavsky as Class 1A No. 8 West Branch remained unbeaten with a 49-7 win over North Cedar (1-6) at Doug Jackson Field in Stanwood.

“I can’t say enough good things about Jacob to come in like that and run for 180 yards and he still caught a few passes,” Hierseman said. “He never complains, we could have given him the ball 40 times and he would have taken it 40 time and never complained about it, he’s a great kid.”

Lukavsky has had a strong season in his first year taking over for Lenoch, rushing for better than 700 yards but left last week’s 24-23 win over Durant with an injury.

The Bears’ second leading receiver and an all-state corner back, Graves made the transition to running back this week.

On Friday, he made the most of his action at running back since junior high, scoring on touchdown runs of 38 and 25 yards as West Branch rolled up 231 yards on the ground.

“The transition was pretty easy,” Graves said. “The lineman were making some good holes and opening up space and I made some cutbacks.”

Junior Beau Cornwell passed for 279 yards and a touchdown and ran for 35 yards and three scores as West Branch rolled up 510 yards of total offense.

West Branch improved to 7-0 and 5-0 in District 3 play with the win and can secure the district title with a home win over Tipton (3-4)

After winning back-to-back games that weren’t decided until the final seconds Friday was never in question.

Following a three-and-out on its first possession West Branch scored touchdowns on seven consecutive drives.

“It felt really nice to have a game that didn’t come down to the end,” Grave said. “We got a big lead we got to 7-0 and we are trying to get the district title next week.”

West Branch had first-half scoring drives of 73, 58, 92, 64, 18 and 74 yards while building a 42-7 halftime cushion.

Graves started the scoring with a 38-yard run that capped a 5-play, 73-yard drive.

The senior carried three times for 48 yards on the drive that put West Branch up 7-0 with 4:56 left in the first half.

“I wasn’t really nervous at all,” Graves said. “We worked practice all week with me at running back and the line made some good blocks and opened holes.”

It was all West Branch from that point on.

Cornwell scored on a 36-yard scramble and Graves added a 25-yard TD run that put the Bears up 21-0.

After the Knights cut the lead to 21-7 West Branch answered with a 10-play, 62-yard march capped by a 10-yard scoring strike from Cornwell to Ben Thompson.

North Cedar fumbled the ensuing kickoff and Levin Kleinmeyer hopped on it at the Knight 18-yard line.

Three players later Cornwell scored from 2 yards out to put the Bears up 35-7.

West Branch capped a 28-point second quarter with an 11-play, 74-yard touchdown drive that ended with a 1-yard Cornwell touchdown plunge with seven seconds left in the half that put the Bears up 42-7.

Cornwell finished 21-of-28 passing, giving him a West Branch single season record with 121 completions.

“He’s done a phenomenal job,” Hierseman said of Cornwell. “He was 21-of-28 tonight and one of those he was clocking it so really he was 21-of-27 and there are times he can make something out of nothing. He scrambled for a touchdown, he scrambled and found a guy in the back of the end zone. He’s just a phenomenal quarterback and really, really coachable.”

Thompson led West Branch with seven receptions for 111 yards and a touchdown, which gave him the West Branch single season mark for touchdown grabs with 10.

Brett Schiele had five grabs for 75 yards in an expanded role with Graves moving to running back.

“That was the biggest challenge was fitting guys in at receiver because Jacob does so much for us,” Hierseman said. “We had three guys take his position this week, what he would normally do was divided up between three different guys.”

Schiele had an interception for West Branch while John Hatfield led the Bears with six tackles including two for loss.
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                                  WB                 NC

First Downs               27                    6

Rushes-Yards            38-231             20-102

Comp-Att-Int               21-28-0            5-14-1

Passing Yards           279                  66

Punts-Avg.                 2-33                 5-28.6

Fumbles-Lost             2-0                   1-1

Penalties-Yards          2-20                 2-10

West Branch    14    28    7    0  –  49 

North Cedar      0      7     0    0  –   7

WB – Jacob Graves 38 run (Beau Cornwell kick)  

WB – Cornwell 36 run (Cornwell kick)

WB – Graves 25 run (Cornwell kick)

NC – 78 run (PAT Kick)

WB – Ben Thompson 10 run (Cornwell kick)

WB – Cornwell 2 run (Cornwell kick)

WB – Cornwell 1 run (Cornwell kick)

WB – Levi Kleinmeyer 4 run (Cornwell kick)

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – WB: Jacob Graves 23-179, Beau Cornwell 5-36, Morgan Hartz 6-12, Levi Kleinmeyer 3-11, Kelby Burger 2-4, Team 2-(-10).

PASSING – WB: Beau Cornwell 21-28-0 279.

RECEIVING – WB: Ben Thompson 7-111, Brett Schiele 5-75, Jacob Graves 4-36, Dakota Kaalberg 3-28, Peter Espensen 1-17, Brady Lukavsky 1-12.