Defending Champ Van Meter Too Much For Top-Ranked West Branch in Class 1A Semifinal
Ryan Murken
Your Prep Sports
CEDAR FALLS – West Branch had a 3-0 lead, the ball and momentum on its side after a fourth-down stop at its own 20 yard line late in the first quarter of its Class 1A semifinal on Friday.
In less than two minutes it all disappeared.
Second-ranked Van Meter cashed in on a pair of West Branch turnovers and scored three touchdowns in a span of a minute and 55 seconds at the end of the first and start of the second quarter on its way to a 48-17 win over top-ranked West Branch on Friday morning at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls.
“We made some mistakes and once you get into a hole against a good team it’s really hard to get out of,” West Branch senior Carver Boelk said. “We never gave up, we came out after halftime and fought but that hole was just a little too deep.”
Van Meter junior Ben Gordon rushed for 190 yards and two touchdowns as Van Meter racked up 284 rushing yards and outgained the Bears by 202 yards on the ground.
Ben Gilliland threw for 183 yards and two touchdowns, rushed for 87 yards and a touchdown and caught a touchdown pass as defending state champion Van Meter (11-1) advanced to the 1A title game for the fourth consecutive season.
The Bulldogs outgained West Branch 472 to 290
“They are an extremely good team,” West Branch senior quarterback Tye Hughes said. “They threw the ball well, they ran the ball well and they shut down most of what we had coming at them. Give props to them.
West Branch got off to a strong start as Wyatt Fiderlein connected on a 33-yard field goal on the game’s opening possession.
Tye Hughes found a wide-open Carver Boelk for a 53 yard gain on the third play of the game to set up the Fiderlein field goal that gave West Branch a 3-0 lead a little more than three minutes into the game.
With the early field goal West Branch became the first team to score against Van Meter in the postseason.
The Bulldogs had posted four consecutive shutouts entering Friday’s semifinal.
“They are really good, we came into it thinking maybe they hadn’t played that many good teams but they are really good,” Kinnick Boelk said. “They are a great team.”
The West Branch defense responded by stopping the Bulldogs on their first possession.
Van Meter moved the ball to the West Branch 22 yard line but on fourth-and-3 Holden Arnaman stopped Carter Durflinger a yard short of the first down on a short pass.
With 3:14 left in the opening quarter West Branch had the ball, the lead and the momentum.
It changed quickly.
West Branch went three-and-out on its ensuing possession and Van Meter scored in just three plays after taking over at the West Branch 37 yard line.
That touchdown, on a 5-yard reverse pass from Durflinger to Gilliland with 41 seconds left in the first quarter started a wild two-minute stretch for the Bulldogs.
On the first play of the ensuing West Branch drive Durflinger picked off a Hughes pass and returned it to the Bear 16 yard line.
Four plays later Gordon scored on a 4-yard run to make it 14-3.
On the ensuing West Branch kick return Porter Doggett picked up a fumble and ran 13 yards for a touchdown that made the score 21-3 with 10:54 left in the first half.
“I think that obviously changed the momentum and set the momentum in our favor.” Van Meter coach Eric Trudo said. “Any time you can get that, especially up here with all the heightened emotions then your kids can really feed off of that.”
Van Meter made it 28-3 at the half when Gilliand scored on a 7-yard run with 4:37 left in the first half.
The Bulldogs made it 35 unanswered points when Will Gordon hauled in a 94-yard touchdown pass from Gilliland with 8:05 left in the third quarter.
“They used their quarterback to run a lot and that’s hard to stop when they have 10 blockers,” Carver Boelk said. “They ran the running back down the seam and we weren’t ready for that. There were some things that they hadn’t shown on film and that’s hard to prepare for and hard to stop.”
West Branch got a pair of second half touchdowns.
Hughes scored on a 1-yard run and tossed a 14-yard scoring strike to Kinnick Boelk.
Hughes finished 22-of-42 for 208 yards and a touchdown with Carver Boelk catching four passes for 65 yards and Kinnick Boelk hauling in four passes for 47 yards and a touchdown.
“We are a team that will never give up,” Hughes said. “That’s a really good team we just played but we fought until the very end.”
WB VM
First downs 16 14
Rushes-yards 29-82 39-284
Comp-Att-Int 22-42-1 7-8-0
Passing yards 208 188
Total yards 290 472
Punts-Avg. 4-34.2 1-43
Fumbles-lost 1-1 1-1
Penalties-yards 3-15 3-20
West Branch 3 0 7 7 – 17
Van Meter 7 21 14 6 – 48
WB – Wyatt Fiderlein 33 field goal
VM – Ben Gilliland 5 pass from Carter Durflinger (Katie Lindsay kick)
VM – Ben Gordon 3 run (Lindsay kick)
VM – Porter Doggett 13 fumble return (Lindsay kick)
VM – Gilliland 5 run (Lindsay kick)
VM – Will Gordon 94 pass from Gilliland (Lindsay kick)
WB – Tye Hughes 1 run (Fiderlein kick)
VM – Ben Gordon 62 pass from Gilliland (Lindsay kick)
WB – Kinnick Boelk 14 pass from Hughes (Fiderlein kick)
VM – Ben Gordon 35 run (Kick blocked)
Individual statistics
RUSHING – WB: Andy Henson 15-54, Cale Seydel 4-24, Tye Hughes 8-8, Kinnick Boelk 1-3, Carver Boelk 1-(-7). VM: Ben Gordon 23-190, Ben Gilliland 12-87, Garrett Cole 3-8, Jay Haley 1-(-1).
PASSING – WB: Tye Hughes 22-42-1 208. VM: Ben Gilliland 6-7-0 183, Carter Durflinger 1-1-0 5.
RECEIVING – WB: Trenton Schutte 5-28, Carver Boelk 4-65, Kinnick Boelk 4-47, Holden Arnaman 4-46, Jake Swisher 3-21, Andy Henson 1-4, Cale Seydel 1-(-3). VM: Will Gordon 3-106, Carter Durflinger 2-15, Ben Gordon 1-62, Ben Gilliland 1-5.
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