Susan Harman

Your Prep Sports

WEST BRANCH – Tanner Lukavsky has been a marked man this fall.

The Bears were breaking in a new quarterback and as the leading rusher for West Branch a year ago and one of the few major offensive cogs returning this season (he averaged 118 yards per game and 10 yards per carry) defenses have worked overtime to bottle him up.

Which isn’t to say Lukavsky hasn’t been productive.

He averaged 5.8 yards per carry through the first six games, but his total yardage is below where he might have been expected to be at 575.

But Friday night for Homecoming against Northeast Goose Lake, Lukavsky broke loose for 183 yards and three touchdowns to help the Bears to a 42-0 victory at Butch Pedersen Field.

“Usually they have a linebacker spying on me when I do a swing route out there but nobody up the middle I guess,” Lukavsky said.

Fifth-ranked West Branch is 7-0 overall and 3-0 in district play and plays at Cascade next Friday. Northeast is 1-6, 0-3.

Lukavsky had touchdown runs of 24, 48 and 48 yards in the second quarter as the Bears broke the game open en route to a 28-0 halftime lead. He had 157 yards on just seven carries in the first half.

“I think this week we’ve been more aggressive than we’ve been all year,” Lukavsky said. “My guys opened it up, and I ran right through them.”

The Bears’ offensive line of Matt Paulsen, Dalyn Pedersen, Brad Hunter, Cameron Howsare and Jeff Bowie opened holes that Lukavsky hasn’t seen much this year.

“I could probably drive my truck through it, honestly,” Lukavsky said. “The lanes were so wide open, and there was no safety to stop me either. So I just broke out.”

“We had a better bond together,” Bowie said. “We gave up a few pass rush plays and didn’t do the best on our pass blocking. But I felt like our run blocking really molded together, and we did better this week. That’s something we can carry over to next week.”

The holes were so wide that Lukavsky wasn’t even touched on two or three of the biggest runs.

As if in payment for the hard work on the offensive and defensive lines, the football gods rewarded Bowie early in the fourth quarter. It came on a weird turn of events.

Northeast’s Ethan Snyder recovered a Bear fumble and returned it from the Rebels’ 15 to the Bears’ 13.

Two plays later the Rebels had the ball on the 3-yard line but fumbled, and Bowie was the beneficiary.

“Dalyn came in from the back and knocked it out,” Bowie said. “I saw it on the ground, and, you know, it’s a dead sprint from there.”

Bowie picked it up and headed the other way, 93 yards for a touchdown.

“I didn’t really comprehend. I saw it on the ground, and after about 10 steps I thought, ‘Wow, I really have the ball in my hands,’” Bowie said.

“It was exciting; it was a big adrenaline rush, but by about the 20 on the other side I was like, ‘Wow that was a lot farther than I expected it to be.’”

It was Bowie’s first defensive touchdown.

The defense held Northeast to just 90 yards rushing and 18 passing. Howsare and Wyatt Goodale each intercepted a pass in the first half.

The one negative on the Bears’ ledger was penalties.

The Bears had eight penalties for 65 yards

“It’s discipline,” Bowie said. “We work on it all week in practice and we get in the game and start over-thinking things. We just need to slow it down and breathe for a second and go.”

                                   NE                  WB

First downs                9                      19

Rushing-yards           32-90               33-258

Comp-att-int              5-17-2              10-15-1

Passing-yards             18                    114

Punts-avg.                  5-34.8              1-38

Fumbles-lost               2-1                   1-1

Penalties-yards          6-53                 8-65

Northeast       0   0   0   0  –  0

West Branch  7  21  0  14 – 42

WB – Trey Eagle 23 pass from Gavin Hierseman (Cael Fiderlein kick)

WB – Tanner Lukavsky 48 run (Fiderlein kick)

WB – Lukavsky 24 run (Fiderlein kick)

WB – Lukavsky 48 run (Fiderlein kick)

WB – Jeff Bowie 93 fumble return (Fiderlein kick)

WB – Dominic Culver 3 run (No. 14 kick)

Individual statistics

RUSHING – NE: Dakota Stevenson 23-68, Ty Schmidt 7-34, Riley Wolfe 2-(-12). WB: Tanner Lukavsky 12-183, Andy Henson 7-49, Dakota Kaalberg 2-11, Wyatt Goodale 1-9, Dominic Culver 2-5, Gavin Hierseman 9-1.

PASSING – NE: Riley Wolfe 5-14-2-18, Dakota Stevenson 0-3-0-0. WB: Gavin Hierseman 9-14-1-107, Tanner Lukavsky 1-1-0-7.

RECEIVING – NE: Cade Hughes 1-12, Trey McAleer 3-10, Dakota Stevenson 1-(-4). WB: Trey Eagle 3-69, Wyatt Goodale 4-22, Dakota Kaalberg 1-14, Gavin Hierseman 1-7, Tanner Lukavsky 1-2.

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