Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – West High earned a big win in its season opener last week snapping a four-game losing streak to cross-town rival City High.

A big win, yes, an emotional win for sure.

But one win.

West High avoided a Battle for the Boot letdown and picked up win number two on Friday.

Ethan Headings hauled in four of the five touchdown passes thrown by West High quarterbacks on Friday as the Trojans rolled to a 56-7 win over Dubuque Hempstead (0-2) at Trojan Field in Iowa City.

“That’s what put such a weird spin on the City game is because it is such an emotional game but it is only game one,” West High coach Hartwig said. “Nobody qualified for the playoffs last week, nobody qualified for the playoffs tonight. We look at the season as a process and this is step two of a nine-game process and we have to get better every week.”

Headings caught three touchdown passes from junior Reece Wheeler and another from Mikey Moody as West High improved to 2-0 for the first time since 2020.

“All week we’ve been grinding, we know how good we really are we just want to show that to everyone,” Headings said. “All the guys played their hearts out and showed everyone what we are.”

Headings caught four passes for 89 yards in a 30-0 season-opening win over City High last week.

However, the 6-foot-2, 205-pound senior didn’t find the end zone against the Little Hawks.

Headings wasted no time getting in on the scoring act on Friday, catching three of his four touchdowns in the opening half.

“Last week I feel like I played pretty well but I really wanted to get in the endzone and I didn’t get there,” Headings said. “I feel like I had something to prove this week and I just went out there and played as hard as I could and left it all on the field.”

The third touchdown of the game for Headings, a 35-yard touchdown strike from Wheeler gave the Trojans a 35-0 lead with 1:52 remaining in the opening half.

“Ethan is just an animal,” Wheeler said. “He’s so athletic and we’ve developed good chemistry throwing all the winter and summer and I trust him a lot.”

After Dubuque Hempstead scored its only points of the game on a 16-yard touchdown run by senior tailback Jaden Montgomery with 1:05 remaining in the first half West High struck again before the half.

Wheeler connected with Henry Elser for a 46-yard touchdown with 25 seconds remaining in the second quarter.

The fourth touchdown strike of the game for Wheeler gave West High a 42-7 halftime lead.

“I knew we were going to play intentional and play with a lot of effort,” Wheeler said. “That was the goal, we didn’t want to get sloppy we just wanted to compete all game and put it on them.”

Headings added his fourth touchdown of the game with 10:38 remaining on a 55-yard strike from Moody.

Kingstone Ross capped the scoring with a 16-yard touchdown run set up by a pair of Moody runs.

“Reece and Mikey tonight I think they realized that they have a solid offensive line in front of them and they are going to have time to get through their progressions,” Hartwig said. “Last week I think they predetermined a little bit and tonight they went through their progressions and it showed. They made some plays.”

West High shut down Dubuque Hempstead posting a second consecutive impressive defensive effort, limiting the Mustangs to just seven points.

“I credit the defensive coaches and I think we found some things that were working really well in the summer and we just carried it through and let the players play fast,” Hartwig said. “It’s just keeping it simple and letting them play fast, good defense.”

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