Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

NORTH LIBERTY – In the smashmouth, run-heavy offense at Liberty High there aren’t a lot of opportunities for quarterbacks and wide receivers to make big plays.

When they got that opportunity with the game on the line on Friday Liberty High seniors Drake Woody and Ben Houselog made the most of it.

Houselog hauled in a 36-yard pass from Woody with under a minute left to set up a game-winning field goal by Ryan Nugent as Liberty High rallied for a 23-20 win over City High in the season opener for both teams in North Liberty.

“When your name is called, when it may not be called again for a while you have to execute when you can,” Houselog said. “You have to rise to the occasion.”

Max Tafolla rushed for 171 yards and a touchdown as Liberty High rolled up 253 yards on the ground but in a game that featured just nine pass attempts in 95 offensive snaps it was the perfectly thrown fade from Woody to Houselog that was the play of the game.

City High had just tied the back-and-forth game at 20-20 on a 28-yard touchdown run by senior Tonka Hickman with 1:31 left.

Liberty High took over at its own 40 with 1:26 left and with no intentions to go into overtime.

“Absolutely, we knew we could score,” Tafolla said. “That’s the only thing we were thinking about. We weren’t thinking about overtime. Our initial thought was we are going to ram the ball down the field and put one in. We didn’t put one in but we got a field goal and I can’t ask for anything more.”

Tafolla gained four yards on first down.

On second down Woody dropped back and dropped a deep pass over the shoulder of Houselog who was streaking down the Lightning sideline.

“Right when I released that ball I knew it was caught,” Woody said. “We knew what coach was calling and it worked. It all worked out.”

The 36-yard gain set Liberty High up at the Little Hawk 20 yard line with 51 seconds left.

“He put it right on the money, it was a beautiful ball and all of that but at the same time we’ve worked on that and we got beat twice on it in key situations,” City High coach Dan Sabers said. “When that happens you have to say ‘wait a minute, what’s going on.”

Four straight runs by Tafolla pushed the ball to the Little Hawk 2 yard line and Nugent connected on a 19-yard field goal with three seconds left to seal the win.

The two-cross town rivals played to a virtual deadlock for more than 46 minutes.

Both teams scored on their first two drives of the game while relying heavily on the running game.

City High struck first with a 13-play, 79-yard drive that took more than eight minutes off the clock and ended with a 1-yard touchdown run by Hickman.

Liberty High answered with an eight-play march capped by a 19-yard touchdown pass from Woody to Houselog on a fourth-and-eight play.

“I feel like we are definitely one of those power teams but when your number is called you have to make a play,” Woody said. “We’ve done this for four years now and I’m used to it. As long as it’s for the team I don’t care what I have to do.”

City High took its final lead on a 16-play, 71-yard march that ended with a 1-yard Raph Hamilton touchdown run with 2:27 left in the first half.

Liberty High answered immediately going 56 yards in five consecutive running plays in 81 seconds to tie the game at 14 at the half.

Tafolla had runs of 12 and eight yards before scoring on a 6-yard run to cap the drive.

“We don’t do any trick plays we don’t do anything special all we do is we pound the rock,” Tafolla said. “That’s all we do. It’s almost our mantra just to run the ball.”

Liberty High opened the second half with a 12-play, 68-yard march and took its first lead at 20-14 when Tafolla scored on a 9-yard touchdown run on fourth-and-seven with 6:50 left.

Hickman tied the game with an impressive 28-yard touchdown run with 1:31 left and finished with 127 yards on 25 carries but Liberty High had the last possession and the last score.  

“There are some things there that we like but again we talk about it it’s a 48-minute game,” Sabers said. “There were just too many things that we didn’t do as well as we could.”

Kaleb Williams added 73 yards on the ground as Liberty High averaged better than 6.3 yards per carry.

 “A big victory like this it almost brings a tear to my eyes,” Tafolla said. “All the stuff in the preseason leads up to big victories like this and I’ll tell you man, I can’t wait for the rest of the season.”

                                   ICL                 ICH

First downs                16                    15       

Rushes-yards             40-253             46-255

Comp-Att-Int                3-5-0                3-4-0

Passing yards             64                    22

Total yards                  317                  277

Punts-Avg.                  2-43.5              2-41.5

Fumbles-lost               0-0                   1-0

Penalties-yards           6-60                 8-37

City High                   6  8  0  6  –  20

Liberty High              6  8  6  3  –  23

ICH – Tonka Hickman 1 run (Run failed)

ICL – Ben Houselog 19 pass from Drake Woody (Kick blocked)

ICH – Raph Hamilton 1 run (Darren Richardson pass from Hamilton)

ICL – Max Tafolla 6 run (Tafolla run)

ICL – Tafolla 9 run (Run failed)

ICH – Hickman 28 run (Run failed)

ICL – Ryan Nugent 20 field goal

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – ICH: Tonka Hickman 25-127, Raph Hamilton 15-54, Darren Richardson 4-68, Gable Mitchell 2-6. ICL: Max Tafolla 24-171, Kaleb Williams 12-73, Jack Ankenbauer 2-7, Drake Woody 2-2.

PASSING – ICH: Raph Hamilton 3-4-0 22. ICL: Drake Woody 3-5-0 64

RECEIVING – ICH: Gable Mitchell 2-12, Jacob Means 1-10. ICL: Ben Houselog 2-55, Kaleb Williams 1-9.

Did you enjoy this subscription free article? Help keep Your Prep Sports free by becoming a member.