Pleasant Valley Powers Past Liberty High in Wild Shootout in North Liberty
Susan Harman
Your Prep Sports
NORTH LIBERTY – This game was nuts.
Ninety-five points; 41 first downs; 23 penalties; 516 yards rushing by one team and 442 yards passing by the other; three hours of time.
And yet it still came down to blocking and tackling.
In the end Pleasant Valley rode its big, talented line to a 56-39 victory over Liberty High. The key was building a 28-7 lead in the first half.
“That was big,” PV lineman Joey VanWetzinga said of the halftime lead. “It boosted our confidence, our morale. It was really big for us; we needed that.”
The second-half fireworks were window dressing, albeit an entertaining sideshow.
“We would have liked a score-a-thon if we could have gotten up,” Liberty High coach James Harris said. “We could have made them throw the ball.”
Pleasant Valley (2-1) scored touchdowns in four of its five first-half possessions.
Only a key holding penalty scuttled the other drive.
The Spartans had excellent field position for their final two scoring drives.
One began on the Liberty High 47 after an 11-yard Lightning punt.
The other on the 49 after having bottled up Liberty’s offense deep in its own end.
“That kind of offense is really hard to guard,” Liberty High junior back Sutton Koller said, harkening back to the team’s playoff loss to Carlisle, which runs a similar system.
“We came up short a couple times in the first half,” Harris said. “They did a nice job of batting balls down. I was very proud of our team for coming out and scoring five touchdowns in the second half. They were still trying to fight and claw back into it.”
The Spartan offensive line of VanWetzinga, Gabe Kilstrom, Sam Munn, Kyle Vonderhaar and Mason Breen was dominant.
They led the way for three 100-plus yard rushers and provided holes that enabled the Spartans to score on runs of 51, 65, 49 and 80 yards.
“We had a really good week of practice; we were really connecting,” VanWetzinga said. “We were really dominating our double teams. We just clicked. I knew we were a good team, we just had to prove it.”
VanWetzinga is an Iowa commit, but he wasn’t a one-man show on the offensive or defensive lines.
The Spartan backs knew where the holes were, took what was there and never turned it over.
“We’ve got to be better and stopping some of that option stuff,” Harris said. “The dive game was hard for us. Those two single-play drives they had in the second half were killers. We tried mixing a few things up (at halftime), but I’m sure they didn’t work.”
The Liberty High offense gave a good account of itself, but it probably had to be near perfect to beat this team.
Quarterback Graham Beckman threw for 442 yards and five touchdowns.
Junior Dallas Miller caught nine passes for 148 yards.
Koller caught 10 passes for 201 yards and scored five of the Bolts’ six touchdowns.
“He’s a workhorse,” Harris said. “He transformed his body this offseason. He’s been working his butt off.”
Koller’s first TD was a short pass that he ran 13 yards into the end zone to tie the game at 7.
His next was a bit more dramatic.
He took a pass on the sideline and broke tackles running 74 yards to the end zone to start the second half.
It got the Bolts within two touchdowns.
“I ran a corner and as soon as I broke out I saw the ball come, and I knew he (the defender) was going to be sitting on top of me,” Koller said. “So I knew, catch that and go in. I got out there and nobody tackled me. I felt a few people touch my feet, but other than that I was gone. It was pretty fun.”
Koller added a 40-yard TD pass in which he bobbled the ball but caught it in stride and found the end zone.
“I was nervous when it hit my pads and popped up, but I saw it just come right back up and I was like ‘just grab it,’” he said. “Luckily it dropped right in front of me. It would have been pretty embarrassing to drop that.”
Defensing the triple option has been an Achilles’ heel for the Bolts.
They don’t see it much but when they do it has confounded them. But there’s still that attack.
“Our skill position players played well,” Harris said. “I thought offensively we did a lot of good things. We’ve just got to get better. We’re 1-2 in (class) 5A and we’re trying to find our way. We got a tough Cedar Falls up in the Dome.”
PV ICL
First Downs 19 22
Rushing-yards 51-516 24-48
Comp-att-int 1-3-0 25-46-1
Passing-yards 50 442
Punts-avg. 2-45 3-24
Fumbles-lost 0-0 1-1
Penalties-yards 15-135 8-62
Pleasant Valley 14 14 21 7 – 56
Liberty High 7 0 20 12 – 39
PV – Ty Gardner 50 pass from Coy Kipper (Austin Bullock kick)
ICL – Sutton Koller 13 pass from Graham Beckman (Conley Sundblad kick)
PV – Tyge Lyon 6 run (Bullock kick)
PV – Lyon 5 run (Bullock kick)
PV – David Gorsline 51 run (Bullock kick)
ICL – Koller 74 pass from Beckman (kick failed)
PV – Gorsline 65 run (Bullock kick)
ICL – Koller 10 pass from Beckman (run failed)
PV – Lyon 49 run (Bullock kick)
ICL – Koller 3 run (Koller run)
PV – Coy Kipper 80 run (Bullock kick)
ICL – Koller 40 pass from Beckman (run failed)
PV – Kipper 2 run (Bullock kick)
ICL – Cody Nichols 35 pass from Beckman (pass failed)
Individual statistics
RUSHING – Pleasant Valley: Tyge Lyon 26-208, Coy Kipper 14-136, David Gorsline 4-127, Izaac Harvey 4-31, Tate Lyon 2-11, Ben Birkel 1-3. Liberty: Graham Beckman 14-30, Sutton Koller 6-19, Owen Drapeaux 3-12, team 1-(-13).
PASSING — Pleasant Valley: Kipper 1-3-0 50. Liberty: Beckman 25-46-1 442.
RECEIVING — Pleasant Valley: Ty Gardner 1-50. Liberty: Koller 10-201, Dallas Miller 9-148, Cody Nichols 1-36, Jeremy Myers 1-22, Collin Decker 1-17, Gabe Clark 2-17, Drapeaux 1-1.
Did you enjoy this subscription free article? Help keep Your Prep Sports free by donating.