Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

PLEASANT HILL – West High didn’t need to be perfect to get past Southeast Polk in its 5A quarterfinals but the Trojans knew they’d need to be at their best to beat the three-time defending state champs.

Instead it was Southeast Polk that was nearly flawless.

Southeast Polk (7-4) scored touchdowns on its first four possessions and rolled up 312 rushing yards on its way to a resounding 42-15 win over West High on Friday in Pleasant Hill.

“They are three-time defending state champions for a reason,” West High coach Garrett Hartwig said. “I credit what they do and they do it well and I will also say we didn’t play our best game tonight. You have to play well to win in the playoffs and we just couldn’t put it together tonight.”

Junior running back Drew Thompson rushed for 166 yards and four touchdowns and senior quarterback Holden Hansen didn’t throw an incompletion while passing for 85 yards as the Rams advanced to the semifinals for the fifth consecutive season.

Southeast Polk will face Liberty High (10-1) in a 5A semifinal on November 15 at 7 p.m. at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls.

West High, which was vying for its first semifinal appearance since 2017 in its first playoff appearance since 2020, closed the season 6-5.

“There is nothing you can say at the end of the season that makes them feel any better but we know we are better than we showed tonight,” Hartwig said. “It hurts in the momentum but I think we’ll look back and see that we did a lot of good things and got the program back to where it belongs.”

Southeast Polk got rolling early while West High scuffled out of the gate.

The Rams returned a short opening kickoff to the Trojan 36 and needed seven plays to reach the end zone taking a 7-0 lead on a 7-yard touchdown run by senior Landon Vander Werf.

Southeast Polk added scoring drives of 76, 56 and 25 yards while building a 28-0 first-half lead.

“It started with our opening kick, they got great field position and scored and we had a drop early in the game that would have been a big play, a big momentum builder,” Hartwig said. “From there we had a lot of fourth downs on both sides of the ball that cost us.”

West High got on the board in the first half when Mason Woods hauled in a 5-yard touchdown pass from Jack Wallace with 1:32 left in the half.

The Trojans got the ball to open the second half but were forced to punt and Southeast Polk scored touchdowns on its next two possessions to take a 42-8 lead.

West High was limited to 165 yards passing, 273 total yards and 15 points, all season-lows.

“We are an aggressive team and our offense has been powerful and credit Southeast Polk they got stops on us on offense,” Hartwig said. “The score is what it is but maybe that was indicative of the game tonight but there were definitely opportunities for it to go the other way and we didn’t take advantage.”

Wallace finished 18-of-27 for 139 yards and a touchdown also rushed for 50 yards.

Woods has seven receptions for 63 yards and a touchdown and Butali Butali rushed for 58 yards and a touchdown.

“I appreciate all the work and the commitment,” Hartwig said. “We went through some hard times but they kept fighting and believing and they did get us back to where we belong.”

                                         ICW                SEP

First downs                16                    20

Rushes-yards             27-108             47-312

Comp-Att-Int            19-29-0           8-8-0              

Passing yards            165                  85

Total yards                273                  397

Punts-Avg.                 2-39                 0-0

Fumbles-lost              0-0                   0-0

Penalties yards          2-20                 6-51

West High                    0    8   0  7  –  15  

Southeast Polk          14  14  7  7  –  42

SEP – Landon Vander Werf 7 run (Samer Arafa kick)

SEP – Drew Thompson 20 run (Arafa kick)

SEP – Thompson 30 run (Arafa kick)

SEP – Holden Hansen 2 run (Arafa kick)

ICW – Mason Woods 5 pass from Jack Wallace (Chase Bopp pass from Wallace)

SEP – Thompson 6 run (Arafa kick)

SEP – Thompson 5 run (Arafa kick)

ICW – Butali Butali 10 run (Adam Salem kick)

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – West High: Butali Butali 15-58, Jack Wallace 13-50. Southeast Polk: Drew Thompson 18-166, Landon Vander Werf 20-90, Holden Hansen 5-30, Stanley Cooper 4-26.

PASSING – West High: Jack Wallace 18-27-0 139, Mason Woods 1-1-0 26. Southeast Polk: Holden Hansen 8-8-0 85.

RECEVING – West High: Mason Woods 7-63, Julian Manson 4-28, Henry Elser 3-32, Chase Bopp 2-33, Ethan Headings 2-9, Butali Butali 1-0. Southeast Polk: Kaden Hills 6-69, Joey Lauters 2-16.

Did you enjoy this subscription free article? Help keep Your Prep Sports free by donating.