West High Starts Fast in Win Over Muscatine
Matt Coss
Your Prep Sports
IOWA CITY — Slow starts crippled West High during the first two weeks of the football season.
It trailed Liberty High at halftime in Week 1.
It was shutout by Urbandale in the opening two quarters last week.
“The emphasis this whole week was to start fast,” West High quarterback Jack Wallace said.
Mission accomplished.
Set up by short fields on three occasions in the first half, West High scored touchdowns on four of its six possessions in the opening half to cruise past Muscatine 42-20 on Friday night at Trojan Field.
“We made some plays early, got some confidence and ended up where we wanted to be,” said West High coach Garrett Hartwig, whose squad improved to 2-1 and rebounded from a 31-17 setback to Urbandale.
Wallace connected on 18 of 25 passes for 251 yards and three touchdowns.
The junior also scored on a sneak as the Trojans had their highest scoring output of the season.
West High’s first three scoring drives started in Muscatine territory — 49-, 28- and 26-yard lines.
“The issue last week for us was, our defense had to defend short fields and our offense had to drive long fields,” Hartwig said. “That’s tough in high school football.
“Our special teams made some plays for us tonight to help give us that field position.”
On West High’s third offensive snap of the game, Wallace hit Mason Woods on the outside and the junior used his athleticism to break a pair of tackles and dart 34 yards for a touchdown.
“Our whole thing is to get our best players the ball in space,” Wallace said. “(Mason) is a great athlete and it showed on that play.”
Woods hauled in seven catches for a team-high 97 yards.
Senior Izaiah Loveless had 77 yards receiving, including a 27-yard touchdown grab on a fourth-and-14 play early in the third quarter.
Sophomore Mason Goering caught a 21-yard touchdown pass in the opening half, which capped a nine-play, 95-yard drive to make it 28-0.
Muscatine (1-2) had no solution for the plethora of West High receivers.
“Sometimes they’ve got to choose who to double and who not to double,” Loveless said.
“I’m glad I don’t have to (defend it),” Hartwig said. “We feel we’ve got a lot of guys that can make plays, but we left some out there tonight as well.”
West High struggled to run the ball in the first two games, but the return of left tackle Winner Ndjibu (missed the first two games) helped solidify the offensive line.
The Trojans accumulated 162 yards on the ground behind a quartet of backs in Todd Rent, Marquise Rose, Butali Butali and Aaron Honore.
Rent and Butali each had a touchdown.
“That was probably the most important key we had this whole week of practice,” Loveless said of establishing the ground game. “Our O-line blocked and our running backs hit holes and ran.”
That makes West High’s offense extremely potent.
“I think we’re a top-five offense in the state right now,” Loveless said. “We still need to fix a few mechanics, but we can do big things the rest of the season.”
Wallace called it a step in the right direction.
“We’re not where we want to be yet,” he admitted.
Hartwig concurred.
The Trojans are still without four or five starters because of injuries according to Hartwig.
“Health is a big part of the season and determines things in a lot of ways,” he said. “We’ve still got to be more efficient offensively on first down and our defense has got to get off the field on third down. We’ll continue to improve and work on that.”
The Trojans handled the Muskies’ ground-and-pound attack quite well for two-plus quarters.
Muscatine, without all-state tailback Ty Cozad because of a hamstring injury sustained in Week 1, mustered only three first downs and 57 total yards in the first half.
The Muskies pieced together three scoring drives in the last quarter-and-a-half, including a 65-yard touchdown run from Cooper Yao.
“The second half of the third quarter and the fourth quarter, we gave some things up,” Hartwig said, “but I thought the first group did a solid job.”
With the Battle for the Boot next week at City High and Ankeny looming in two weeks, the Trojans were in agreement Friday was a pivotal victory.
“We definitely needed this for our confidence,” Wallace said. “We knew we had it in us, but we had to show it to everyone else.”
MUS ICW
First downs 12 21
Rushes-yards 46-260 29-162
Comp-Att-Int 1-3-0 18-28-0
Passing yards 3 251
Total yards 263 413
Punts-avg. 7-26.0 3-35.0
Fumbles-lost 1-1 0-0
Penalties-yards 7-69 10-97
Muscatine 0 0 14 6 — 20
West High 14 14 14 0 — 42
ICW — Mason Woods 34 pass from Jack Wallace (Evan Anderson kick)
ICW — Wallace 1 run (Anderson kick)
ICW — Todd Rent 4 run (Anderson kick)
ICW — Mason Goering 21 pass from Wallace (Anderson kick)
ICW — Izaiah Loveless 27 pass from Wallace (Anderson kick)
MUS — Cooper Yao 65 run (Jackson Othmer kick)
ICW — Butali Butali 21 run (Anderson kick)
MUS — Yao 6 run (Othmer kick)
MUS — Seth Reiland 8 run (kick failed)
Individual statistics
RUSHING — Muscatine: Dayton Truesdale 17-94, Seth Reiland 14-85, Cooper Yao 2-71, Angel Martinez 1-16, Aiden Lopez 3-9, Darnell Thompson 4-5, Bryce Riesenberg 1-1, Gavin Brookhart 2-(-4), Gaige Curtis 2-(-17). West High: Todd Rent 9-44, Butali Butali 5-42, Aaron Honore 4-37, Marquise Rose 4-34, Izaiah Loveless 1-5, Jack Wallace 3-2, Jacob Gilliam 1-1, Mason Goering 2-(-3).
PASSING — Muscatine: Curtis 1-3-0, 3 yards. West High: Wallace 18-25-0 251 yards; Goering 0-3-0, 0 yards.
RECEIVING — Muscatine: Martinez 1-3. West High: Mason Woods 7-97, Loveless 3-77, Goering 4-41, Nick Caylor 2-20, Erik Caperon 2-16.
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