Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

SOLON – Last week Solon got a win on the scoreboard but left the Spartan Stadium turf feeling less than satisfied with the way it played.

Friday was more up to the Spartans’ standards.

A week after struggling on both sides of the ball in 17-13 win over Davenport Assumption Class 3A third-ranked Solon was dominant from the outset in 45-7 win over Fort Madison (3-2) in the district opener for both teams at Spartan Stadium.

“We cleaned up a lot of things tonight,” Solon senior Jace Andregg said. “Last week rubbed us the wrong way I think this week we came out with a sense of urgency and really cleaned things up and tonight was a lot better.”

Solon (5-0, 1-0 District 6) scored on its final six drives of the first half and held the Bloodhounds to 29 first-half yards while building a 38-0 lead by intermission.  

Cam Miller threw for 319 yards and tossed scoring strikes to five different players as the Spartans stretched their regular season winning streak to an even 30.

A week after committing nine penalties for 70 yards the Spartans didn’t have a penalty on Friday while outgaining Fort Madison 393-146.

 “We worked this week on trying to do our job and the two things we focused on were detail and discipline and I thought we did a good job with that tonight,” Cam Miller said. “We had zero penalties and I think we can beat anyone if we have zero penalties.”

Andregg rushed for a touchdown and led Solon with seven receptions for 138 yards including a 25-yard touchdown pass.

Just as teams have done in the opening four weeks of the season Fort Madison worked to take away Andregg and counterpart AJ Coons in the Solon passing game.

Unlike many times in past weeks the Solon had players step up big on Friday.

Seniors Cole Arduser, Trey Stebral and Seamus Poynton all hauled in touchdown passes as Miller posted career-highs in passing yards and touchdowns.

“Last week they tried to double AJ and they did a really nice job on Jace and tonight I thought Trey and Cole did a nice job of stepping up and proving themselves with huge catches for us,” Miller said. “For them to gain confidence going into these next two games is huge.”

Solon turned the ball over on downs at the Bloodhound 14 on the opening possession of the game but responded with touchdowns on its next six possessions.

Four of those Spartan touchdown drives, including each of the first three, began in Bloodhound territory following a Fort Madison three-and-out.

Solon forced the Bloodhounds to go three-and-out on their first four possessions and didn’t allow a first down until there was less than seven minutes left in the second quarter.

By that point the Spartans led 26-0.

“I thought we did some good things defensively especially in the first half,” Solon coach Kevin Miller said. “Offensively we got things going and started to click. We had that first drive an came up short but I thought we did some good things as we moved forward and progressed through the game.”

Andregg started the scoring with a 13-yard touchdown run with 7:08 left in the opening quarter.

Following a punt on the ensuing Bloodhound possession Solon needed three plays to go 35 yards and went up 13-0 when Poynton scored on a four-yard run.

Solon’s next four possessions all ended with Miller touchdown passes.

The senior tossed a 40-yarder to Arduser to make it 20-0 when scrambled and fired a bullet to Stebral for a six-yard strike that put the Spartans up 26-0.

“We need that to be as diversified as we want to be on offense, we need guys to make plays,” Kevin Miller said. “We’ve got guys that are capable it’s just a matter of putting guys in position to execute their assignments and do what they are supposed to do. Tonight, Cole played well, I thought Seamus ran the ball hard inside and did some great things we just have to get to the point where we are a little more complete and a little more diversified and making us that much harder to defend.”

Miller found Andregg for a 25-yard touchdown pass that capped a six-play 63-yard drive that made the score 32-0.

The final score of the first half was a 36-yard strike to Coons that made it 38-0.

Poynton capped the scoring with a 66-yard touchdown on a screen pass in the third quarter.

“There were five different people that scored tonight and that’s really important for us to spread the ball around and it really keeps teams guessing,” Andregg said.

Solon will face its two biggest district six hurdles on the road in the next two weeks starting with a trip to No. 6 Washington (5-0) next Friday followed by another round trip to Mount Pleasant (4-1).

“We made a big jump this week, we got better this week,” Kevin Miller said. “We are going to have to get better as we prepared for Washington and Mount Pleasant because we know those are two formidable opponents.”

                                    SOL                FM

First Downs               15                    9

Rushes-yards             23-74               28-42

Comp-Att-Int             17-23-0            11-23-0

Passing yards             319                  104

Total yards                 393                  146

Punts-avg.                  1-34                 9-26.8

Fumbles-lost               1-1                   1-0

Penalties-yards          0-0                   3-25

Solon                         20  18  7  0  –  45

Fort Madison              0    0   7  0  –   7

SOL – Jace Andregg 13 run (Pass failed)

SOL – Seamus Poynton 4 run (Cael O’Neill kick)

SOL – Cole Arduser 40 pass from Cam Miller (O’Neill kick)

SOL – Trey Stebral 6 pass from Miller (Pass failed)

SOL – Andregg 25 pass from Miller (Kick failed)

SOL – AJ Coons 36 pass from Miller (Kick failed)

FM – Parker Denning 34 pass from Will Larson (Landes Williams kick)

SOL – Poynton 66 pass from Miller (Will Noonan kick)

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – SOL: Seamus Poynton 12-42, Cam Miller 5-18, Jace Andregg 1-13, Bo Janssen 1-6, True Eidahl 3-(-1), Caleb Ebert 1-(-4). FM: Will Larson 17-17, Diego Lozano 6-14, Tanner Settles 3-8, Calem Maclearn 2-3.

PASSING – SOL: Cam Miller 16-21-0 319, Bo Janssen 1-2-0 0. FM: Will Larson 11-23-0 104.

RECEIVING – SOL: Jace Andregg 7-138, AJ Coons 4-56, Cole Arduser 2-47, Seamus Poynton 1-66, Trey Stebral 1-6, Colton Hoffman 1-6, Mathieux Rehnke 1-0. FM: Parker Denning 5-51, Michael Mosena 3-8, Quentin Schneider 2-32, Brock Califf 1-13

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