Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

WEST BRANCH – West Branch donned its old school throwback uniforms from 1943 for its district opener on Thursday evening.

It was a new school wide open West Branch offense that helped the Bears remain unbeaten.

Gavin Hierseman threw for 314 yards and three touchdowns as Class 1A fifth-ranked West Branch rolled up 499 yards of offense in a 52-28 win over Bellevue (1-4) at the Little Rose Bowl in West Branch.

“Every week the coaches trust me a little more and a little more and it’s great being comfortable now,” Hierseman said. “It really helps Tanner (Lukavsky) now that we can throw over the top because teams can’t load the box so he is loving it, everyone is loving it and we are having fun on offense. We are coming together and I love it.”

Wearing its World War II era purple uniforms West Branch unveiled a few new wrinkles in its 20th century offense on Thursday scoring on a flea flicker and a halfback pass while putting up a season high 52 points.

Hierseman, Lukavsky and senior receiver Trey Eagle did most of the offense damage for West Branch.

Trey Eagle hauled in touchdown passes of 80, 64 and 13 yards while setting a school-record with 214 receiving yards and Lukavsky scored four touchdowns as the Bears eclipsed 400 yards of offense for the first time this season.

“It just makes it fun, keeps things interesting and keeps the defense on their toes,” Eagle said of the wide-open offensive approach. “Coach (John) Hierseman does a great job of teaching us what to do each week and I know he has fun with it. He draws up a bunch of fun plays.”

Once known as a power running team West Branch has evolved offensively in recent years.

Thursday was a breakthrough for this year’s offense led by Hierseman.

The junior first-year starter had the best game of his career, completing 13-of-17 passes for 314 yards and three scores and Eagle became the first player in West Branch history to post 200 receiving yards in a game.

“We wanted to open it up because we have great athletes,” Hierseman said. “This season they thought I was just going to be a running quarterback and then they realized I can really throw it too and that really helped a lot.”

It was Lukavsky that was at the center of everything on Thursday.

The 225-pound senior tailback rushed for a touchdown, caught a touchdown pass, threw a touchdown pass and returned an interception 42 yards for a score as West Branch moved to 5-0 on the season and 1-0 in 1A, District 4 play.

Lukavsky ran for 82 yards including a 20-yard touchdown run and caught four passes for 98 yards including a 43-yard grab.

He also threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to Eagle with 25 seconds left in the first half that gave West Branch a 28-14 halftime lead.

“We’ve been working that all week and I didn’t know if they were going to call it,” Lukavsky said. “Usually Coach Hierseman doesn’t trust my arm, we’ve had that play written up for a few years.”

Bellevue took a 7-0 in the first quarter when it took advantage of one of the few mistakes of the night for the West Branch offense.

Colby Sieverding picked off a tipped Hierseman pass and on the next play Max Jackson hit Jacob Waller for a 37-yard touchdown to give the Comets a 7-0 lead.

West Branch responded immediately as Eagle hauled in his first touchdown of the day, an 80-yarder on the first play from scrimmage following the ensuing kickoff.

“They came out and scored and they had all the momentum and that’s what they wanted to do is come in here and punch us in the mouth and we didn’t really respond the last game when we got hit in the mouth and we really did that today,” Eagle said. “Gavin threw a great ball and I went up and got it. That was really big to swing the momentum back and we did a good job of not losing the momentum after that.”

Hierseman pumped faked and then lofted a ball deep down the sideline to Eagle who made the catch over a defender near midfield, broke a tackle and went untouched down the sideline.

“He’s 6-foot-4 and I don’t even know his vertical but we called a 62 and go and I fake it early and he goes deep,” Hierseman said. “It was actually a pretty bad throw but he made a great catch.”

That touchdown started a string of 21 unanswered points for West Branch in a span of less than six minutes.

Lukavsky scored on a 20-yard touchdown run after an Eagle interception ended the next Bellevue drive.

Hierseman found Eagle for a 64-yard touchdown on a flea flicker to make it 21-7 West Branch with 8:04 left in the first half.  

“I think that first touchdown by Trey just relaxed everybody a little bit,” West Branch offensive coordinator John Hierseman said. “I know it relaxed me.”

West Branch led 28-14 at the half and put the game out of reach with 10 straight points to open the second half.

After Cael Fiderlein hit a 32-yard field goal Hierseman found a wide open Lukavsky down the middle of the field for a 43-yard touchdown that made it 38-14 with 3:25 left in the third quarter.

Lukavsky scored his second defensive touchdown of the season to put the finishing touches on the win, picking off a Jackson pass and taking it back 42 yards for a score.

“When they took the timeout they motioned him out there and then I think they tried to hide it by not motioning him out there,” Lukavsky said. “I went out with him and he threw it and the receiver didn’t even look it was right to me.”

Hierseman rushed for 65 yards and a fourth-quarter touchdown as West Branch finished with 170 yards on the ground.

The win avenged back-to-back regular season losses to Bellevue which dropped to 1-4 with its fourth loss to a team that entered week five with one or zero losses.

“They were 1-3 coming in to tonight and our coaches told us they aren’t a 1-3 team, they’ve played a lot of good teams and we’ve battled them the last three years,” Gavin Hierseman said. “We got a win tonight and that’s all we needed.”

                                   WB                 BEL

First downs                18                    14

Rushes-yards          35-171             34-140

Comp-Att-Int             14-18-1            11-17-3

Passing yards           327                  206

Total yards                 499                  346

Punts-avg.                 1-36                 2-44.5

Fumbles-lost              0-0                   2-1

Penalties-yards          5-50                 6-40

West Branch           7  21  10  14  –  52

Bellevue                    7   7    7    7   –  28

BEL – Jacob Waller 37 pass from Max Jackson (Ty Kloser kick)

WB – Trey Eagle 80 pass from Gavin Hierseman (Cael Fiderlein kick)

WB – Tanner Lukavsky 20 run (Fiderlein kick)

WB – Eagle 64 pass from Hierseman (Fiderlein kick)

BEL – Waller 12 pass from Jackson (Kloser kick)

WB – Eagle 13 pass from Lukavsky (Fiderlein kick)

WB – Fiderlein 32 field goal

WB – Lukavsky 43 pass from Hierseman (Fiderlein kick)

BEL – Waller 61 pass from Jackson (Kloser kick)

WB – Lukavsky 42 interception return (Fiderlein kick)

WB – Hierseman 2 run (Fiderlein kick)

BEL – Ben Parker 46 run (Kloser kick)

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – WB: Tanner Lukavsky 13-82, Gavin Hierseman 11-65, Andy Henson 6-21, Wyatt Goodale 2-5, Dominic Culver 2-(-1), Team 1-(-1). BEL: Ben Parker 17-75, Max Jackson 12-48, Jacob Waller 4-18, Team 1-(-1).

PASSING – WB: Gavin Hierseman 13-17-1 314, Tanner Lukavsky 1-1-0 13. BEL: Max Jackson 11-17-3 206.

RECEIVING – WB: Trey Eagle 7-214, Tanner Lukavsky 4-98, Andy Henson 1-6, Kristian Nalan 1-5, Kaleb Sexton 1-4. BEL: Jacob Waller 4-109, Colby Sieverding 5-95, Ben Parker 1-2.

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