Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Liberty High rushed for 365 yards and five touchdowns in a week one win over West High.

On Friday junior quarterback Reece Rettig passed for 266 yards and four touchdowns.

Any way you slice it. Or run it or pass it the Lightning are 2-0.

Liberty High scored on all four first-half drives while building a 28-14 lead and rolled to a 42-20 statement style win over City High (0-2) on Friday at Bates Field in Iowa City.

“What we want to do on offense is control the game and whether we do that running it or throwing short passes and screens it’s all the same to us,” First-year Liberty High head coach Scott Chandler said. “Reece has such a good understanding of what we want, he did exactly what we wanted to do.”

Liberty High did pretty much whatever it wanted on offense on Friday.

The Lightning racked up 453 total yards and 23 first downs, averaged 8.1 yards per play and scored touchdowns on six of seven possessions.

“The plan was to establish the run and get the run going, we trust our o-line,” Rettig said. “We are going to get the run going and that’s going to open up shots to hit our big plays down the field.”

Sutton Koller scored five touchdowns, three receiving touchdowns, a rushing score and on a 70-yard interception, as Liberty High won its third consecutive game over City High.

In those three wins consecutive wins over City High the Lightning have outscored City High by a combined total of 55-6 in the second half.

Friday marked the first time in program history Liberty High has defeated West High and City High in the same season.

“I’m just proud of our players,” Chandler said. “The players play, the coaches can only set guys up for success but the players are the ones that have to go out and make the plays and our guys have done that two weeks in a row.”

Koller caught touchdown passes of 65, 34 and 38 yards from Rettig who also tossed a 11-yard scoring strike to tight end Landon Bell.

The do-everything Koller added a 13-yard touchdown run and put the finishing touches on the win by picking off a Bobby Bacon pass and returning it 70 yards for a touchdown with 2:17 remaining.

Koller

“All of our defensive backs were looking to get a pick today we know Bobby can throw the ball, we know he’s going to throw deep a bunch against us,” Koller said. “We really wanted to get one and I’m really glad it came. It came late, it wasn’t really needed but it was still really big and I was glad to get a pick.”

Liberty High took the opening kickoff and marched 85 yards in 13 plays, taking a 7-0 lead on a 3-yard run by senior tailback Owen Drapeaux.

The Lightning overcame an illegal block penalty and a 13-yard loss on a fumble on the game-opening drive, converting it’s only third down of the drive with a 10-yard pass from Rettig to Drapeaux.

“I think that’s something our guys have really bought into is just play the next play,” Chandler said. “We have a negative play, that’s going to happen, we have a penalty now and then lets play the next play.”

Liberty High forced a three-and-out on the first City High offensive possession and took control of the game on the next drive.

Rettig found a wide-open Koller for a 65-yard touchdown on a third-and-five play that gave the Lightning a 14-0 lead less than nine minutes into the game.

“We ran the ball really well last week so we were expecting them to be a little more heavy on the run game this week which they were, they were sending guys left and right,” Koller said. “We knew our screens would work well and our roll outs would work well. We have a dual-threat quarterback that can run and pass. Our game plan was to run the ball and we realized what we could do and we have the best coach in the state and he’s going to have a plan.”

City High twice cut the lead to a touchdown at 14-7 and 21-7 but the Lightning answered with a five-play, 67-yard touchdown drive before the half that took just 61 seconds.

Koller made it 28-14 at the break when he scored on a 38-yard screen pass with 51 seconds remaining in the second quarter.

“If you trust in your teammates that all you need,” Rettig said. “I felt good coming into tonight and I knew we had a group that could make plays around me.”

Liberty High limited City High to just six points in the second half and put the game away with second-half touchdown drives of 11 and 10 plays.

Drapeaux rushed for 86 yards and a touchdown and Rettig ran for 70 yards as the Lightning rolled up 187 yards on the ground.

Bacon finished 17-of-27 for 188 yards passing for City High with Parker Sutherland making five receptions for 87 yards and a touchdown.

Dominic Salibi rushed for 97 yards and a score for City High.

“I think our guys (on defense) are getting more comfortable with their roles,” Chandler said. “I think both of the two teams we’ve played are going to be good on offense. Bobby Bacon is as good of a high school quarterback as you are going to see so you can’t say enough about him, the guys West High has on the outside are different so it’s tough defensive matchups but to give up 20 points tonight, that’s huge. We are going to win a lot of games if our defense is only giving up 20 points.”

ICH                ICL

First downs                 15                    23

Rushes-yards              31-123             37-187

Comp-Att-Int              18-27-1           14-19-0

Passing yards              198                  266

Total yards                  321                  453

Punts-Avg.                  3-34.3              1-32

Fumbles-lost               0-0                   1-0

Penalties-yards           7-50                 3-30

City High                   0    14  0   6   –  20

Liberty High              14  14  0  21  –  49

ICL – Owen Drapeaux 3 run (Collin Weis kick)

ICL – Sutton Koller 65 pass from Reece Rettig (Weis kick)

ICH – Parker Sutherland 10 pass from Chayse Newton (Jackson Nichols-Lindsey kick)

ICL – Koller 34 pass from Rettig (Weis kick)

ICH – Newton 5 pass from Bobby Bacon (Nichols-Lindsey kick)

ICL – Koller 38 pass from Rettig (Weis kick)

ICL – Koller 13 run (Weis kick)

ICH – Dominic Salibi 1 run (kick blocked

ICL – Landon Bell 11 pass from Rettig (Weis kick)

ICL – Sutton Koller 70 interception return (Weis kick)

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – ICH: Dominic Salibi 22-97, Gabe Egeland 6-25, Bobby Bacon 3-1. ICL: Owen Drapeaux 20-86, Reece Rettig 9-70, Sutton Koller 5-19, Dallas Miller 2-25, Team 1-(-13).

PASSING – ICH: Bobby Bacon 17-27-1 188, Chayse Newton 1-1-0 10. ICL: Reece Rettig 14-19-0 266.

RECEIVING – ICH: Parker Sutherland 5-87, Adan Carbajal 5-49, Chayse Newton 4-36, Dominic Salibi 3-16, Blaine Heick 1-10. ICL: Dallas Miller 6-72, Sutton Koller 4-150, Landon Bell 3-34, Owen Drapeaux 1-10.

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