Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

CEDAR FALLS – West High wasn’t at its best on Friday night.

That didn’t stop the top-ranked Trojans from giving four-time defending champion West Des Moines Dowling their best shot.

West High landed an early blow with a game-opening touchdown drive, had one of the best performances ever from a quarterback in a state title game and didn’t allow a third down conversion in a Class 4A title game rematch on Friday.

None of it was enough to knock off the defending champs.

No. 2 Dowling (12-1) took advantage of four Trojan turnovers and survived a record-setting performance by West High senior quarterback Evan Flitz to run its state title streak to five straight with a 35-21 win over No. 1 West High (12-1) at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls.

“It’s a tough one,” West High coach Garrett Hartwig said. “You lose to a team that just flat-out beats you, you can walk away but you lose to a team after you make a lot of mistakes, that’s a tough one you have got to learn from. Hopefully our young guys saw that tonight.”

West High landed a haymaker early with a beautifully executed 10-play, 80-yard touchdown drive and Flitz, a feisty senior gunslinger never quit swinging saving perhaps the best game of his career for last.

Flitz set 4A title game record for completions and yards, finishing 30-of-40 for 347 yards and three touchdowns against a Dowling defense that came in allowing 138 yards a game through the air.

The senior was also sacked three times, intercepted once and lost a fumble.

“They are an excellent team and an excellent program and in big likes this you have to execute at the highest level,” Flitz said. “Our effort was there but we had a few too many mistakes that kind of took us further out of the ball game.”

Jayson Murray rushed for 155 yards and three touchdowns and senior quarterback Blake Clark threw for 202 yards and a score as Dowling racked up 411 total yards.

All five Dowling touchdown drives were five plays or fewer and twice the Maroons scored on the first play of a possession.

Dowling averaged 8.1 yards per offensive snap and had touchdown runs of 41, 38 and 52 yards.

“It’s a game of momentum and a game of big plays and they capitalized very quickly on our mistakes,” Hartwig said. “That’s what’s going to be hard knowing that we are a better team than we showed tonight. That’s the way it goes. That’s life, that’s sport.”

West High fell to Dowling 23-10 in the title game last season in its first trip to the 4A championship since 1999.

The Trojans demonstrated immediately on Friday they wouldn’t be bullied in their return to the title game.

Flitz completed five consecutive passes to close out an 80-yard touchdown march that ended with a 9-yard scoring strike to senior receiver Traevis Buchanan less than four minutes into the game.

“We realized the opponent we were playing against, but I’m not going to say we were nervous that we were afraid to go against them because they have won however many championships in a row,” Buchanan said. “We came into this game like we look at anybody else,” Buchanan said. “We prepared for them all week the best we could and we came out and played hard.”

The champs counterpunched. Quickly.

Dowling needed just three plays and 23 seconds to go 80 yards, tying the game on a 41-yard run by Murray.

That touchdown started a string of 28 unanswered Dowling points.

Murray scored on a 38-yard touchdown run on the first play following a West High punt and added a 3-yard jaunt that put Dowling up 21-7 at the half.

West High forced a three-and-out to start the second half but the Trojans lost their second fumble on a muffed punt and four plays later Clark hit John Schmidt for a 14-yard touchdown and a 28-7 Dowling lead.

“We haven’t made those type of mistakes all year,” Hartwig said. “Credit West Des Moines Valley for forcing into those mistakes. You can’t do that against good teams and they are the best team this year, today they were the best team but I’d take our guys anywhere against anybody.”

West High wouldn’t go down without a fight.

The Trojans twice cut the lead to 14 on Flitz touchdown passes and got the ball back but couldn’t get any closer.

“We made some mistakes but I’m just proud of the way we fought,” Doyle said. “Usually these Dowling guys bury people after making mistakes but we kept coming back, we kept fighting and I’m proud of the guys. I love them and I couldn’t ask for a better team to play with.”

Buchanan finished with seven receptions for 144 yards and two touchdowns to lead West High.

Senior Austin Geasland had a career-high seven receptions for 58 yards and Trumell Roberts caught seven passes for 56 yards.

The loss halted a 12-game West High winning streak and capped an impressive two-year run in which the Trojans have gone 22-4 with back-to-back 4A runner-up finishes.

“I think a lot of people last year thought we rolled in here on momentum and we shouldn’t have really been here but this year I think we proved ourselves that we deserved to be here,” Buchanan said. “This wasn’t luck, this wasn’t chance we deserved to be here.”

                            

                                  Dowling               West

First Downs                  16                         24

Rushes-Yards              35-209                     29-44

Comp-Att-Int                10-16-0                    30-40-1

Passing Yards              202                        347

Punts-Avg.                   7-38.9                     5-35.8

Fumbles-Lost               0-0                        3-3

Penalties-Yards            3-27                         7-82

 

West Des Moines Dowling       7    14    7    7  –  35 

West High                              7     0     7    7  –  21

ICW – Traevis Buchanan 9 pass from Evan Flitz (Lucas Karwal kick)

WDD – Jayson Murray 41 run (Reilly Smidt kick)  

WDD – Murray 38 run (Smidt kick)  

WDD – Murray 3 run (Smidt kick)  

WDD – John Schmidt 14 pass from Blake Clark (Smidt kick)

ICW – Buchanan 18 pass from Flitz (Karwal kick)

WDD – Matt Moore 52 run (Smidt kick)

ICW – Austin West 11 pass from Flitz (Karwal kick)

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – ICW: Trumell Roberts 12-51, Andre White 5-3, Owen McAreavy 1-3, Austin Geasland 1-2, Austin West 1-(-3), Evan Flitz 9-(-12). WDD: Jayson Murray 26-155, Matt Moore 3-52, John Schmidt 1-1, Blake Clark 5-1.

PASSING – ICW: Evan Flitz 30-40-1 347. WDD: Blake Clark 10-16-0 202.

RECEIVING – ICW: Traevis Buchanan 7-144, Austin Geasland 7-58, Trumell Roberts 7-56, Jalen Gaudet 3-40, Austin West 3-37, Dillon Doyle 1-6, Noah Breitbach 1-3, Andre White 1-3. WDD: Sam Ingoli 3-96, Anthony Coppola 3-52, Charlie Johnson 2-46, John Schmidt 1-14, Jayson Murray 1-(-6).