Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

Speaking solely statistically the senior season for Gavin Hierseman was off to a solid start.

The West Branch senior quarterback passed for more than 500 yards and three touchdowns in his first two performances of 2020.

Those numbers were little consolation to Hierseman who missed a week-two loss to West Liberty with an injury and threw a pair of interceptions in a 21-14 loss to Cascade that led to an uncharacteristic 1-2 start for the Bears.

“1-2, that’s not what we wanted, that’s not what we are used to,” Hierseman said. “That’s not a West Branch start.”
Hierseman made sure the Bears got back on track with perhaps the best performance of his prep career last week.

The 6-foot-1, 185-pound Hierseman completed 16-of-22 passes for 254 yards and four touchdowns helping West Branch snap a two-game losing skid with a 43-8 win over Wilton.

Hierseman also ran for a season-high 31 yards in the win as West Branch rolled up a season-high 473 yards of total offense while averaging better than 8.9 yards per play.

“He’s one of the best 1A quarterbacks in the state of Iowa,” West Branch coach Butch Pedersen said. “He was hurt and he’s battled back and now he’s going to be a run threat too. He’s going to be dual threat going forward.”

Hierseman threw for 222 yards and two scores in a season-opening win over Tipton but sat out the week-two loss to West Liberty with an injury.

He completed 29-of-49 passes for a season-high 285 yards in his return against Cascade but threw a pair of interceptions in the district opener.

Hierseman was locked in from the beginning on Friday, completing his first six passes and going 13-of-16 for 220 yards and three touchdowns in the first half as West Branch built a 33-0 lead.

“Last week Cascade runs a pretty tough defense to read,” Hierseman said. “We worked on cover three all week this week and we can annihilate a cover three and that’s what we did.”

Hierseman came up limping after taking a hit on the opening drive of the game, a 12-play West Branch march that ended with a field goal.

He responded by throwing touchdown passes of 59 and 32 yards to sophomore Carver Boelk and a 5-yarder to Simon Palmer to end the half.

“I took a hit to it and it felt like the same thing as the first week but then it went away,” Hierseman said. “It’s only going to get better from here.”

Hierseman added a 32-yard strike to Palmer in the third quarter on a 4-and-14 play.

Three games into his senior season Hierseman is completing 63 percent of his passes while throwing for 761 yards and seven touchdowns with just two interceptions.

More important the Bears are back to 2-2 with three regular season games remaining.

“There were a lot of young guys that I think were a little worried going 1-2, that’s not a West Branch start. After losing last week, we said ‘we aren’t going to do this anymore’,” Hierseman said. “We are a scary team and that’s what we showed tonight and we are going to build off of this.”

Did you enjoy this subscription free article? Help keep Your Prep Sports free by donating.