Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

CEDAR FALLS – Through most of its 11-game winning streak to start the season Solon made a habit of jumping out to early leads.

In Saturday’s state semifinal against second-ranked Boyden-Hull/Rock Valley the Spartans found themselves on the other end of a strong start.

Boyden-Hull/Rock Valley scored touchdowns on its first two possessions while racing to a 14-0 lead less than five minutes into the game and cruised to a 42-0 win over Solon in a Class 3A semifinal at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls.

“For a lot of this season we’ve been able to get on people pretty quick,” Solon coach Lucas Stanton said. “Tonight, we got a taste of the other end of that.”

Boyden-Hull/Rock Valley (12-0) advanced to the state title game for the fourth time in program history with the win and will face top-ranked Harlan (12-0) in the 3A championship on Friday at 1 p.m.

Friday’s title game will be a rematch of a 3A semifinal last season won by Harlan 44-7.

“Last year was just kind of we are here, bright lights big city, we had fun and it was great and we didn’t play particularly well that night and they played really well,” Boyden-Hull/Rock Valley coach Cordy Brandt said. “This year it was experience of last year that probably prepared our kids. We came in with a lot more purpose.”

Boyden-Hull/Rock Valley wasted little time taking control in its return to the state semifinals on Saturday.

The Nighthawks forced Solon to go three-and-out on its first two possessions following each Spartan punt with touchdown drives.

Landy Van Kekerix raced 45 yards for a touchdown on fourth-and-1 to cap a 6-play, 70-yard opening drive for the Nighthawks.

Boyden-Hull/Rock Valley needed just two plays to score on its second drive as senior quarterback Tanner Te Slaa ran for 25 yards then hit Van Kekerix for a 33-yard touchdown pass to make it 14-0 with 7:32 left in the first quarter.

“It’s everything, getting out to a fast start and that’s what they did,” Solon junior quarterback Blake Timmons said. “The same thing happened last year at Waukon and we ending up losing that game and it was the same thing tonight. We needed to get out to a better start.”

While Boyden-Hull/Rock Valley was rolling early on offense Solon couldn’t out anything together against the Nighthawk defense.

Solon ran just 28 total plays on its first seven drives accounting for 23 total yards and four first downs.

“They figured us out really well,” Solon senior lineman Gage Marty said. “They figured out how to attack us and we just couldn’t really figure anything out.”

Boyden-Hull/Rock Valley scored five first-half touchdown all on plays of 25 yards or longer.

Te Slaa had all four of his touchdown passes in the first half adding a 68-yarder to Van Kekerix in the second quarter and strikes of 25 yards to Sam Remmerde and 55 yards to Vance Katzfey.

“They were really aggressive vertically,” Solon senior Logan Sieverding said. “That’s what hurt us was the big plays vertically. Their quarterback threw some dimes.”

Te Slaa finished 14-of-21 for 334 yards and four touchdowns with Van Kekerix catching five passes for 141 yards and rushing for 57 yards on four carries.

The Nighthawks rolled up 464 yards of total offense.

“We knew they were a solid team, they are undefeated so we knew they were going to be really good coming in,” Van Kekerix said. “We just prepared well and were disciplined and the coaches put us where we needed to be and we went out and made plays.”

Timmons finished 10-of-22 passing for 111 yards but was under constant pressure from an aggressive Boyden-Hull/Rock Valley front seven.

Solon was held to just 12 rushing yards on 12 carries.

They were just flying around to the ball and they were sending a lot of pressure,” Timmons said. “They were smothering our receivers and I’ll give them credit they had a great game plan coming in.”

                                    SOL                BH/RV

First downs                 10                    16

Rushes-yards              28-12               22-130

Comp-Att-Int              11-23-0           14-22-0

Passing yards              124                  334

Total yards                  136                  464

Punts-avg.                   7-34.3              3-28

Fumbles-lost               2-0                   2-1

Penalties-yards           3-20                 3-41

Solon                                            0   0   0  0  –   0

Boyden-Hull/Rock Valley    14  21  7  0  –  42

BH/RV – Landyn Van Kekerix 45 run (Gael Enciso kick)

BH/RV – Van Kekerix 33 pass from Tanner Te Slaa (Enciso kick)

BH/RV – Van Kekerix 68 pass from Tanner Te Slaa (Enciso kick)

BH/RV – Sam Remmerde 25 pass from Te Slaa (Enciso kick)

BH/RV – Vance Katzfey 55 pass form Te Slaa (Enciso kick)

BH/RV – Lane Schmidt 14 run (Enciso kick)

Individual statistics

RUSHING – Solon: Sean Stahle 13-21, Tino Longo 1-4, Brett White 1-4, Mac McCarty 1-3, Logan Sieverding 1-2, Blake Timmons 10-(-5), Jacob Timmons 1-(-7). Boyden-Hull/Rock Valley: Landyn Van Kekerix 4-57, Lane Schmidt 6-26, Tanner Te Slaa 1-25, Zach Strubbe 6-19, Emilian Ruvalcaba 2-8, Bryson Van Grootheest 1-1, Caleb Kats 1-(-3), Van Katzfey 1-(-3).

PASSING – Solon: Blake Timmons 10-22-0 111, Brayden Ruskey 1-1-0 13. Boyden-Hull/Rock Valley: Tanner Te Slaa 14-21-0 334, Zach Strubbe 0-1-0 0.

RECEIVING – Solon: Logan Sieverding 4-41, Jacob Timmons 2-32, Trin Eidahl 2-13, Sean Stahle 1-25, Grant Gerdin 1-13, Carson Miller 1-0. Boyden-Hull/Rock Valley: Landyn Van Kekerix 5-141, Sam Remmerde 3-54, Vance Katzfey 2-68, Bryson Van Grootheest 2-60, Caleb Kats 2-11.

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