Late Comeback by West Branch Comes up Just Short in Second-round Loss to Mediapolis
Ryan Murken
Your Prep Sports
WEST BRANCH – After falling into a 14-0 halftime hole West Branch battled back nearly all the way back in the second half.
In the end it just wasn’t quite enough.
Perhaps more accurately it was just too much Anthony Isley.
Isley rushed for 277 yards and two touchdowns as Mediapolis (7-2) held off West Branch 20-13 in a wild Class 1A second-round matchup on Friday at the Little Rose Bowl in West Branch.
“He’s a special player,” Mediapolis coach Brian Borrison said of Isley. “We knew he was a special player, he’s only a sophomore and I think he’s starting to get things figured out.”
The loss snapped a four-game winning streak for West Branch (5-3) which had a bye in the opening round of the 1A playoffs last week.
West Branch struggled with execution at times on Friday dropping passes and committing three turnovers, including a pair of costly fumbles, and several timely penalties.
“We came back in the second half and did a really good job we just didn’t play as sharp as we have been playing and you can’t do that in a playoff game,” West Branch coach Butch Pedersen said. “If you do you are going to have a problem and that’s what happened.”
Despite its early struggles West Branch had a couple of chances to tie the game in the final three minutes.
West Branch got as close as 14-13 on a Gavin Hierseman 5-yard touchdown run with 2:36 left but the PAT sailed wide.
The Bears had another opportunity to tie the game after blocking a PAT following a 43-yard touchdown run by Isley with 1:23 left.
West Branch got to midfield but Isley picked off Hierseman heave toward the end zone on the final play of the game to preserve the win.
“Our kids just kept battling,” Pedersen said. “They are born and raised that way and they are going to continue to be that way in life as people. I’m really proud of them.”
Mediapolis used a pair of big plays to take a 14-0 lead into the locker room.
Logan Thie made a leaping catch of a Regan Thornburg pass in the corner of the end zone for a 24-yard touchdown on a 3rd-and-12 play with 4:37 left in the opening quarter.
The Bulldogs then made it 14-0 when Isley went 95 yards for a touchdown with 7:55 left in the first half.
“He’s a good back,” Pedersen said of Isley. “He runs extremely hard and he’s shifty. They did a good job.”
West Branch got back into the game immediately in the second half.
Kinnick Boelk picked off a Thornburg pass on the third play of the third quarter and returned it to the Bulldog 30 yard line.
Four plays later Hierseman hit Cash Woody on a slant for an 8-yard touchdown pass.
It remained 14-7 until the fourth quarter when West Branch put together it’s best drive of the game, a 10-play, 66-yard march that ended with Hierseman scoring on a 5-yard run.
The PAT went wide leaving the Bears trailing 14-13.
After recovering an onside kick attempt Mediapolis appeared to put the game away when Thornburg converted a fourth-and-1 with a quarterback sneak.
However, West Branch allowed Isley to go 43-yards untouched on the next play and blocked the ensuing PAT to keep it a seven-point game.
“They have been playing really well, they were real impressive on film so we expected a close game but I don’t know if we saw some of those weird things that happened at the very end there coming,” Borrison said. “Sometimes things happen that don’t necessarily go the way you coach. We bounced back, made some plays, there were a lot of weird things that happened in the game. Just about everything you could possibly imagine that could go weird went weird but our kids did a great job of staying together.”
West Branch picked up a pair of first downs and had the ball at the 49 yard line but a block in the back penalty was costly.
Hierseman’s final desperation heave was plucked out of the air by Isley.
“We had too many penalties and too many dropped passes in that game to be successful,” Pedersen said. “That’s the game of football.”
Isley entered with 81 carries for 669 yards on the season.
The 165-pound sophomore had 182 yards in the first half on Friday while rolling up a career-high in yards.
“We started out with three really good backs this year and have used them and tried to split touches,” Borrison said. “We really tried to limit his touches to keep him fresh the last few weeks because we knew that we were going to have to have him here.”
Hierseman threw for 155 yards and a touchdown and rushed for 24 yards in a score in his final prep game.
Carver and Kinnick Boelk and Andy Henson all picked off passes while Peyton Miller and Drake Berry recovered fumbles for West Branch.
At the Little Rose Bowl
WB MEPO
First downs 14 13
Rushes-yards 29-125 37-318
Comp-Att-Int 17-34-1 4-11-3
Passing yards 188 51
Total yards 313 369
Punts-avg 6-28.7 3-41.7
Fumbles-lost 2-2 2-2
Penalties-yards 5-58 5-30
West Branch 0 0 7 6 – 13
Mediapolis 7 7 0 6 – 20
MED – Logan Thie 24 pass from Regan Thornburg (Drew Miller kick)
MED – Anthony Isley 95 run (Miller kick)
WB – Cash Woody 8 pass from Gavin Hierseman (Cael Fiderlein kick)
WB – Gavin Hierseman 5 run (Kick failed)
MED – Carter Isley 43 run (Kick failed)
Individual Statistics
RUSHING – West Branch: Andy Henson 16-75, Gavin Hierseman 10-24, Kinnick Boelk 2-21, Peyton Miller 1-5. Mediapolis: Anthony Isley 31-277, Regan Thornburg 3-5, Joshua Darbyshire 2-26, Ben Egan 1-17.
PASSING – West Branch: Gavin Hierseman 17-33-1 155, Carver Boelk 1-1-0 33. Mediapolis: Regan Thornburg 4-11-3 51.
RECEIVING – West Branch: Andy Henson 4-26, Kinnick Boelk 3-49, Cash Woody 3-47, Peyton Miller 3-19, Simon Palmer 2-32, Carver Boelk 2-15. Mediapolis: Logan Thie 2-29, Cole Lipper 1-17, Joshua Darbyshire 1-4
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