Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

CEDAR RAPIDS – Garrett Hartwig has seen Cedar Rapids Kennedy enough times in his head coaching career he know exactly what to expect in Thursday’s season opener.

What is at the top of the list of things the West High coach has learned in seven career meetings with Cougars?

“They don’t beat themselves,” Hartwig said bluntly.

West High came close on Friday but the Trojans couldn’t beat the Cougars either.

Sophomore quarterback Vincenzo Gianforte threw a pair of touchdown passes and Kennedy had 126 of its 191 rushing yards after halftime as the Cougars edged West High 28-19 in the season opener for both teams at Kingston Stadium in Cedar Rapids.

“I credit Kennedy,” Hartwig said. “They are a team that will not beat themselves you have to beat them and we made too many mistakes.”

West High had its chances against the Cougars on Thursday.

The third touchdown catch of the game for Christian Janis from sophomore quarterback Jack Wallace cut the Kennedy lead to 21-19 with 11:53 left.

Wallace came up inches short of tying the game on the ensuing two-point conversion run.

The final 11 minutes and change was all Cougars.

Kennedy took nearly six minutes off the clock on a 13-play, 72-yard touchdown drive that ended with a 2-yard Trevor Scott touchdown run.

West High went three-and-out on its next possession and Kennedy ran out the final 5:07 with its third second-half drive of at least eight plays.

“I feel good in a strange way because we showed flashes of what we will become,” Hartwig said. “I told the boys that this game is not who we are, this game will not define our season, we have to learn from it and the hard part is we have to wait eight days to play again.”

Those flashes came from Wallace, Janis and a defense that limited Kennedy to 104 yards of total offense in the first half.

Wallace passed for 238 yards and Janis, who missed the final eight games last season with an injury, caught seven passes for 174 yards and three touchdowns.

“We just have little things that we need to clean up and all those things are very fixable,” Janis said. “I feel like next week it will be a stronger West High team.”

The game was scoreless for more than 10 minutes as both teams were forced to punt on each of their first two possessions.

Janis got the scoring started when he raced past a Kennedy cornerback and hauled in a 86-yard touchdown pass from Wallace on the first play following a Cougar punt.

“While we were on defense I was talking to coach (Andrew) Durham and he said we are going deep so be ready,” Janis said. “Jack was throwing tremendously tonight and he put me in a good position to succeed.”

Kennedy answered in just 13 seconds.

Donovan Slick-Driscoll fielded the ensuing kickoff and raced 93 yards practically untouched to give Kennedy a 7-6 lead.

“That was huge,” Hartwig said. “I saw a clip of it after it was done and guys did not do their jobs and Kennedy will expose your mistakes.”

West High answered quickly when Wallace hit Janis on a 54-yard touchdown pass that put the Trojans up 13-7 with 11:44 left in the first half.

“I thought our offense played really well in the first half and our defense was playing well too,” Wallace said. “I think we just need to clean up a few things but overall I think our coaches put us in the right positions we just need to execute at the end of the game.”

Kennedy regained the lead on a 19-yard touchdown pass from Gianforte to Cyrus Courtney with 7:19 left before halftime.

The Cougars extended their lead to 21-13 when Gianforte avoided a sack, rolled out and found Grant Mather for a 41-yard touchdown strike on a third-and-seven play.

“It just comes back to we had some mistakes, we have guys playing varsity football for the first time, we are still a fairly young team but I feel good,” Hartwig said. “I think we are going to be o.k. Losing is hard. You never want to lose but I saw enough good things tonight to be excited we just have to eliminate the mistakes.”

                                       ICW                CRK

First downs                11                       15

Rushes-yards             20-67               47-191

Comp-Att-Int            14-22-0              7-11-1

Passing yards             238                   109

Total yards                305                     300

Punts-avg                   5-29.8                2-36.5

Fumbles-lost              0-0                   1-0

Penalties-yards          7-41                 3-25

West High                  6  7  0  6  –  19

CR Kennedy              7  7  7  7  –  28

ICW – Christian Janis 86 pass from Jack Wallace (run failed)

CRK – Donovan Slick-Driscoll 93 kick off return (Dylan Augustine kick)

ICW –Janis 54 pass from Wallace (Evan Anderson kick)  

CRK – Cyrus Courtney 19 pass from Vincenzo Gianforte (Augustine kick)

CRK – Grant Mather 41 pass from Gianforte (Augustine kick)

ICW – Janis 24 pass from Wallace (run failed)

CRK – Trevor Scott 2 run (Augustine kick)

Individual statistics

RUSHING – ICW: Jack Wallace 8-22, Ashton Honore 4-19, Davontae Morris 4-18, Santana Miller 2-4, Christian Janis 2-4. CRK: Trevor Scott 35-142, Vincenzo Gianforte 3-11, Calvin White 3-10, Dominic Mann 2-5, Donovan Slick-Driscoll 1-18, Jacob Doyle 1-2, Team 2-3.

PASSING – ICW: Jack Wallace 14-22-0 238. CRK: Vincenzo Gianforte 7-11-1 109.

RECEIVING – ICW: Christian Janis 7-174, Mason Woods 2-33, Seth Overton 2-12, Todd Rent 1-8, Ashton Honore 1-7, Bryan Torres 1-4. CRK: Cyrus Courtney 3-52, Grant Mather 1-41, Davarion Harris 1-11, Cole Adams 1-6, Michael Mulherin 1-(-2).

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