Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

SOLON – The steak was stopped on Friday night at Spartan Stadium in Solon.

Joey Rhomberg, Henry Ryan, Brady Erickson, Clark Younggreen and a host of others wearing maroon and white made sure of that.

Rhomberg passed for 213 yards and threw the go-ahead touchdown to Erickson in the fourth-quarter as Mount Vernon snapped a 19-game losing streak to Solon with a 17-14 win over the top-ranked Spartans the annual Battle of Highway 1.

“It feels great, we put in the time, we put in the work our coaches do an outstanding job of getting us ready for these games,” Rhomberg said. “All props to Solon, that’s a great program and coach Stanton does a great job with those guys.”

A year ago Mount Vernon let a 14-point first-half lead evaporate as Solon scored the final 21 points in a 41-27 win.

On Friday it was the Mustangs that closed the door late.

Mount Vernon (2-0) scored a pair of second-half touchdowns to overcome a 7-3 halftime deficit while stopping Solon’s win streak in the series a win shy of an even two decades.

“It feels good, we’ve been close before and close doesn’t do you any good,” Mount Vernon coach Lance Pedersen said. “It’s nice for our kids to get that win and hopefully its one of many for our football team.”

Mount Vernon took its first lead of the game at 10-7 on a 10-yard scoring strike from Rhomberg to Erickson on a fourth down play with 29 seconds left in the third quarter.

Erickson, who finished with 11 grabs good for 127 yards, had hits biggest catch of the game late in the fourth quarter.

The 6-foot-3, 170-pound senior went up over a Solon defensive back to snag a Rhomberg pass for a 34-yard gain on third-and-10 from near midfield.

“Me and Brady were working on that all week and I knew it would be there,” Rhomberg said of the completion to Erickson on a deep post pattern. “I just kind of threw it up and he did the rest. He made me look good on that one.”

Four plays later the 230-pound Younggreen powered into the end zone from two yards out to give Mount Vernon a 17-7 lead with 3:30 left.

“They are a good football team, we knew what they had, the plan was to not get beat over the top and we were fine with them dinking and dunking a little bit,” Solon coach Lucas Stanton said. “It became kind of field position game a little bit in the second half and they were able to run the ball a little bit.”

Solon gave itself an opportunity late.

Senior quarterback Blake Timmons led an 8-play, 68-yard touchdown march that took just 1:23 off the clock and ended with an eight-yard touchdown toss from Timmons to Oaken Foster.

Timmons had to retreat to grab a wayward snap, avoided two oncoming rushers and found Foster all alone in the back of the end zone to cut the lead to 17-14 with 1:59 left.

“The effort was there,” Stanton said. “Our kids played their tails off.”
Mount Vernon put the game away on the ensuing possession when Ryan ripped off a 15-yard run on the second play of the drive.

Solon had just 100 yards of offense in the second half and had three of its six possessions after halftime end in punts, one in an interception and one on a turnover on downs at the Mustang 35 yard line.

“Our defense was just on the field too much,” Stanton said. “We probably only had a couple of good drives on offense, we just couldn’t get rolling.”

Sean Stahle rushed for 121 yards on 20 carries and Timmons completed 9-of-26 passes for 149 yards for Solon.

Rhomberg finished 21-of-43 for 213 yards for the Mustangs while Ryan rushed for 90 yards.

“You knew it was going to take all three phases of the game to win this football game tonight and we were able to do that,” Pedersen said. “I’m very proud of our guys.”

SOL                MV

First Downs                  17                         18

Rushes-yards               42-138                30-112

Comp-Att-Int                10-27-1               21-43-1

Passing yards                157                      213

Total yards                     295                      325

Punts-Avg.                      7-41.3                 9-30.8

Fumbles-lost                  2-0                     3-0

Penalties-yards             4-45                   9-60

Solon                             7  0  0  7  –  14

Mount Vernon          0  3  7  7  –  17           

SOL – Blake Timmons 6 run (Grant Knipper kick)

MV – Ben Crock 35 field goal

MV – Brady Erickson 10 pass from Joey Rhomberg (Crock kick)

MV – Clark Younggreen 2 run (Crock kick)

SOL – Oaken Foster 8 pass from Timmons (Knipper kick)

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – SOL: Sean Stahle 21-121, Brett White 7-8, Mac McCarty 2-4, Blake Timmons 11-3, Barrett Schade 1-2. MV: Henry Ryan

PASSING – SOL: Blake Timmons 9-26-1 149, Nash Kotar 1-1-0 8. MV: Joey Rhomberg 21-43-1 213.

RECEIVING – SOL: Oaken Foster 3-44, Sean Stahle 2-33, Ryan Rasmussen 1-46, Austin Knight 1-16, Brett White 1-9, Blake Timmons 1-6, Nash Kotar 1-5. MV: Brady Erickson 11-127, Jensen Meeker 5-53, Evan Brase 2-17, Austin Deeb 2-14, Caden Stimmel 1-2.

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