Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – West High senior Grahm Goering set the tone in Friday’s annual Battle for the Boot.

Marcus Morgan took care of the rest.

Goering returned the opening kickoff 99 yards for a touchdown and Morgan accounted for five touchdowns as Class 4A eight-ranked West High rolled to a 56-20 win over cross-town rival City High (1-1).

“To get that on the opening kickoff it was huge, honestly it was so big for the whole game,” Goering said. “It just set the tone.”

Morgan was brilliant, throwing four touchdowns and running for another score but got plenty of help from his teammates as West High stretched its winning streak over City High to four.

Goering caught three touchdown passes, senior Trey King rushed for 122 yards and a score and senior Damarion Williams caught a touchdown pass and returned an interception for a score.

“That’s just a glimpse of the potential that we have on this team and the performances that we can have throughout this year,” Morgan said. “We played really well but we still have things that we can get better at and that’s the good part.”

Morgan didn’t show much that needed improvement on Friday.

A four-sport athlete with Division I offers in both football and baseball, Morgan accounted for 270 yards of offense and five touchdowns in his final Boot game.

The senior quarterback completed 13-of-14 passes for 228 yards and four touchdowns and rushed for another 42 yards and a score.

“Did he throw an incompletion?” City High coach Dan Sabers asked of Morgan. “He was tremendous. I still think that guy is a college football player. I don’t know what he’s going to do but every time I’ve gone up against him man oh man you just say ‘what do you do about that’. He’s special.”

Morgan threw touchdown passes of 22, 6 and 33 yards to Goering and hit Williams for a 56-yard score.

He added a 10-yard scoring run as West High rolled up 406 yards of total offense while averaging 12.3 yards per play.

“We had a really good pace to start off, a really good flow and we were on the same page everywhere,” Morgan said. “Having that first drive and getting into the end zone that is really nice and we just built off of that all night.”

In the first Boot matchup since 2011 in which both teams entered unbeaten West High needed all of 16 seconds to take control thanks to Goering.

The senior wideout took the opening kickoff inside the one yard line, burst untouched to midfield before shrugging of two would be tacklers on his way to the end zone.

“We worked so much on it, we talked about it so much and they still get it done on us and that’s a credit to them,” Sabers said of the kickoff return. “Obviously Goering is a heck of a player there is no doubt about it.”

The West High defense followed with a stop, forcing City High to punt on its opening possession and Morgan went to work.

He hit Williams on a short out route that the senior receiver turned into a 56-yard touchdown.

City High answered with a 16-play, 68-yard touchdown drive on the next possession with Ben Kueter grabbing a 5-yard touchdown pass from Raph Hamilton to cut the lead to 14-7 with 11:15 left in the first half.

That was as close as the Little Hawks would get.

West High rattled off 21 unanswered points to end the first half as Morgan directed scoring drives of 77, 66 and 64 yards in the final 11 minutes.

West High didn’t face a single third down on its three second-quarter scoring drives that ended with a 10-yard run by Morgan, a 22-yard touchdown pass to Goering and a 6-yard strike from Morgan to Goering.

“We didn’t see that coming, I thought we were further along but boy they took it to us, everybody could see that.” Sabers said. “We helped them with some mistakes early but they took advantage and we didn’t stop them all night.”
Leading 35-7 at the half West High forced a punt to open the second half and then went 72 yards on seven consecutive running plays by King to take a 42-7 lead.

King capped the drive with a 3-yard touchdown run with 7:32 left in the third quarter that triggered the continuous clock.

The West High defense held a potent City High running game in check for most of the game before the Little Hawks tacked on a pair of fourth-quarter scores.

“People were saying that we weren’t tough,” West High linebacker Kalen Haworth said. “I know someone said that we were a 7-on-7 team before the season started. We put up a goose egg against Liberty and then tonight we took it to another level.”
City High finished with 275 total yards of offense but had just 129 yards and averaged 3.7 yards per play in the first half against a stout defensive front from West High.

“I credit the kids and our focus,” West High coach Garrett Hartwig said. “They were very focused in walk through this morning, they were loose but they were all business and that I think is a sign of experience and maturity for a senior class that played a lot as juniors.”

                                   ICW                ICH

First downs                 21                    20

Rushes-yards              19-178             43-155

Comp-Att-Int              13-14-0           11-16-1

Passing yards              228                  120

Total yards                  406                  275

Punts-avg.                   0-0                   4-35.5

Fumbles-lost               1-0                   1-0

Penalties-yards           2-20                 3-30

City High                    0    7    0   13  –  20

West High                  14  21  14  7   –  56

ICW – Grahm Goering 99 kick off return (Owen Smith kick)

ICW – Damarion Williams 56 pass from Marcus Morgan (Smith kick)

ICH – Ben Kueter 5 pass from Raph Hamilton (Kongalo Mwenemkamba kick)

ICW – Morgan 10 run (Smith Kick)

ICW – Goering 22 pass from Morgan (Smith kick)

ICW – Goering 6 pass from Morgan (Smith kick)

ICW – Trey King 3 run (Smith kick)

ICW – Williams 55 interception return (Smith kick)

ICH – Darren Richardson 1 run (Kick failed)

ICW – Goering 33 pass from Morgan (Smith kick)

ICH – Hamilton 14 run (Mwenemkamba kick)

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – West High: Trey King 13-122, Marcus Morgan 4-42, Fabian Brown 2-14. City High: Jamari Newson 17-79, Raph Hamilton 12-44, Darren Richardson 6-22, Keyshawn Voss 5-12, Joey Bouska 1-12, Joe Bacon 1-4, Team 1-(-18).

PASSING – West High: Marcus Morgan 13-14-0 228. City High: Raph Hamilton 11-16-1 120.

RECEIVING – West High: Damarion Williams 5-120, Grahm Goering 5-85, Mikey Brown 2-13, Eric Torrres 1-10. City High: Kolby Kucera 3-36, Gable Mitchell 3-28, Will Larson 2-35, Ben Kueter 2-13, Jamari Newson 1-8.

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