Douglas Miles

Your Prep Sports

TIFFIN – No high school football offense is truly a one-man show.

Any success is contingent on all 11 players working in concert as one productive unit.

But Friday night’s developments would have been a whole lot more interesting for Clear Creek Amana had it not been forced to contend with Marcus Beatty.

The Independence senior tailback carried the ball on 12 of the Mustangs’ first 13 plays from scrimmage and usually gained big chunks of yardage in the process.

The Class 2A all-state selection from a year ago finished with 253 yards via 35 attempts and two touchdowns as Independence stifled the Clippers, 28-14, in a non-district prep football game at Clipper Field.

“The first thing is, they are extremely well coached,” first-year Clear Creek Amana Coach Matt Haddy said. “They are very well coached. I have known (Independence) Coach (Justin) Putz … and their staff for a long time. They are good friends of mine and they do things the right way. They are very well-skilled and they know what they are going to get in terms of the opponent and they play to it.”

Beatty ran for 1,515 yards last season, which ended in the 2A playoff round of 16.

Through two games this year, Beatty appears en route to another decorated campaign with 502 yards and six touchdowns.

“I think our inside zone running play has been working really well,” Beatty said. “It is made for me as a running back. I usually am patient and then I find the hole and I hit it.”

Beatty alternated between fielding handoffs from junior quarterback Mitch Johnson and taking direct shotgun snaps from center and running out of the ‘Wildcat’ formation.

Both formations were equally successful as Beatty was just 26 yards shy of 200 by halftime.

“It’s not really different at all,” Beatty said of taking handoffs versus fielding direct snaps. “We’re probably one of the only teams in the state that lead blocks with our quarterbacks. It just adds another blocker for me.”

Despite the thunderous production from Beatty in the first half, Clear Creek Amana appeared as if it would head to the intermission down by just one score.

But after a failed fourth-down conversion attempt gave Independence the ball at its own 44-yard-line with less than a minute remaining in the half, the Mustangs needed just four plays to cover 56 yards.

A 22-yard touchdown pass from Johnson to senior receiver Keegan Schmitt with 10 seconds left gave the Mustangs a 21-7 lead.

“It is always tough,” Haddy said. “And I will take the blame for us. I didn’t have us in a very good coverage right there for what they ran, and so I will take the blame for that one.”

Independence (2-0) – which figures to be ranked in Class 3A when the Associated Press releases its first rankings of the season next week – extended its lead to 28-7 with just over two minutes left in the third quarter when Beatty scored his second touchdown of the game.

Both his touchdowns were from 16 yards away.

“When you have a back like the Beatty kid, that makes a lot of things happen in your favor from a running game standpoint,” Haddy said.

Clear Creek Amana (1-1) turned the ball over twice in the second half, muffed a punt in the first and was limited to just 236 total yards.

Senior tailback Gage Freeman ran for a first-half score, while senior quarterback Ben Swails threw for 125 yards, ran for 62 and scored on a nine-year quarterback keeper with eight minutes left in the game.

Johnson threw for 118 yards and two scores and Schmitt posted four receptions for 72 yards for Independence, which hosts West Liberty next Friday, while Clear Creek Amana will entertain Washington (Iowa) at Clipper Field.

“I think the big thing is, obviously we have got to clean up the areas that we are not playing very well in right now,” Haddy said. “The running game is one that we have really got to clean up. Defensively, we cannot give up big plays like we did tonight. Washington has a pretty good passing attack and a really good quarterback. … For us, it is just continuing to hammer away at the little things. There is a specific way we have to play to be successful. For us, it is not turn the football over, it is being sound defensively and winning the special teams battle.”

IND                 CCA

First Downs                13                    14

Rushes-yards              40-247             37-111

Comp-Att-Int              8-14-0             16-27-2

Passing yards              118                  125

Total yards                  365                  236

Punts-avg.                   4-47                 3-35

Fumbles-lost               2-0                   1-0

Penalties-yards           4-40                 3-30

Independence            7  14  7  0   – 28

Clear Creek Amana  7   0   0  7   – 14

CCA – Gage Freeman 1 run (Grant Kruse kick)

IND – Marcus Beatty 16 run (Sawyer Wendling kick)

IND – Jake Sidles 8 pass from Mitchell Johnson (Sawyer Wendling kick)

IND – Keegan Schmitt 22 pass from Mitchell Johnson (Sawyer Wendling kick)

IND – Marcus Beatty 16 run (Sawyer Wendling kick)

CCA – Ben Swails 9 run (Grant Kruse kick)

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – Independence: Marcus Beatty 35-253, Mitchell Johnson 4-(-5), Quentin Krogmann 1-(-1). Clear Creek Amana: Gage Freeman 12-23, Ben Swails 14-62, Xavier Williams 7-15, Jackson Schmidt 2-7, Jackson Stevens 1-4, Harrison Rosenberg 1-0.

PASSING – Independence: Mitchell Johnson 8-13-0-118, Marcus Beatty 0-1-0 0. Clear Creek Amana: Ben Swails 16-27-2 125.

RECEIVING – Independence: Keegan Schmitt 4-72, Jake Sidles 1-8, Brady McDonald 3-38. Clear Creek Amana: Harrison Rosenberg 4-39, Reece Hoffman 2-12, Gage Freeman 5-33, Bryce Mougin 1-11, Brody Clubb 1-5, Jackson Stevens 2-7, Blaine Stockman 1-18.

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