Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

NORTH LIBERTY – One loss doesn’t exactly qualify as a slump.

Last week’s 42-6 loss to Johnston was definitely a swing and a miss for Liberty High.

After last week’s disappointing loss to the Dragons the message from Liberty High coach Mitch Wieland leading up a showdown with rival West High was straight forward.

Don’t change your swing.

“I took a lot of accountability for last week, I thought last week when things started to go awry I kind of got away from what had got us there,” Wieland said. “I’m in a big believer in when you are in a slump don’t change your swing and I kind of changed my swing last week. The message all week was don’t change your swing.”

Liberty High came out swinging on Friday.

The Lightning jumped to a 14-0 first quarter lead and never looked back, cruising to a 51-17 homecoming win over West High (2-3) at Liberty Stadium.

“We flushed last week and we were honestly just really focused on this week,” Liberty High senior quarterback Emerson Berner said. “It was a big game, a big rival, and we were 2-2 and we knew we had to get a win.”

Berner threw for 325 yards and three touchdowns and Brody Beaver ran for two scores as Liberty High improved to 3-2 on the season.

Adrian Clerry had a touchdown catch and returned an interception for a score as Liberty High posted its third consecutive win over West High.

“After the loss to Johnston this is really big,” Clerry said. “We are back in the win column, now we are getting our rhythm back and now we know what to do to win ball games.”

Liberty High scored on four of its five first-half possessions and Clerry returned an interception 65 yards for a touchdown with 53 seconds remaining in the half as Liberty High built an insurmountable 31-7 halftime lead.

The Lightning had touchdown drives of 63, 54 and 80 yards in the first half and took advantage of three first-half turnovers by the Trojans.

“This was a pretty big game with the rivalry, they are a good team, they’ve got guys and this proves that we are still in it even with the loss last week,” Beaver said. “We are still out there, we are still some top dogs.”

Liberty High won the toss and elected to receive.

The Lightning came out swinging early with a 6-play, 63-yard touchdown drive capped a 3-yard touchdown run by Beaver.

Berner completed all three of his passes on the opening drive including a 40-yarder to Clerry on the second play of the game.

“It was super important,” Berner said. “This year we’ve kind of struggled on that first drive so it was super important to get our momentum going and show our defense we were ready to go. It was huge for us to score first.”

Beaver had three carries for 11 yards on the opening touchdown drive of the game including his 3-yard scoring burst.

“You always have to set the tone with that first drive,” Beaver said. “Also just seeing what works best on that first drive and there were things we had to change up a little and we were able to do that. We were able to adjust.”
Clerry halted a strong opening drive by West High with an interception at the Lightning four yard line.

Liberty High got good field position when Jacob Karstens recovered a West High fumble at the Lightning 46 yard line.

The Lightning cashed in on the turnover when Pryor Reiners scored on a 2-yard touchdown run to give the Lightning a 14-0 lead with 47 seconds remaining in the first quarter.

“We truly couldn’t have executed the opening script any better,” Wieland said. “We had repped it, we had a good feeling with what we wanted to start out with. As the season goes on you start to figure out who you are and your personnel and I think we’ve really started to figure that out.”

West High cut the lead to 14-7 when Reece Wheeler found Cade Towler in the corner of the end zone for a 22-yard touchdown strike with 9:57 left in the first half.

Liberty High responded with a 11-play, 80-yard scoring drive capped by a 13-yard strike from Berner to Clerry.

Liberty High turned another Karstens fumble recovery into a 24 yard field goal by Andrew Strathman with 3:01 remaining.

Clerry provided the back breaker when he picked off a tipped pass and returned it 65 yards for a score with under a minute to play in the first half.

“I saw the guy coming up the seam, I was trying to cut him off a little bit and I saw it go right through his hands and I had to go get it,” Clerry said. “I just raced to the end zone.”

Cooper Lester and Reiners each tacked on fourth-quarter touchdown receptions and Beaver capped the scoring with a 2-yard touchdown run.

Reiners led Liberty High with seven receptions for 152 yards and Lester had five grabs for 140 yards.

Berner finished 16-of-21 passing for 325 yards and three touchdowns.

“It’s nice knowing that you can believe in your guys,” Clerry said. “We don’t have to rely on one guy. Everyone makes plays and that’s really nice.”

                                       ICW                ICL

First downs                21                    18

Rushes-yards             50-228             29-75

Comp-Att-Int            14-22-2           18-23-0

Passing yards             130                  378

Total yards                358                  453

Punts-Avg.                 1-0                   1-15

Fumbles-lost              4-2                   1-0

Penalties-yard           8-69                 7-80                     

West High                   0    7   10  0   –  17

Liberty High             14  17   0  20  –  51

ICL – Brody Beaver 3 run (Andrew Strathman kick)

ICL – Pryor Reiners 2 run (Strathman kick)

ICW – Cade Towler 22 pass from Reece Wheeler (Jadon Vanderpuye kick)

ICL – Adrian Clerry 13 pass from Emerson Berner (Strathman kick)

ICL – Strathman 24 field goal

ICL – Clerry 65 interception return (Strathman kick)

ICW – Vanderpuye 26 field goal

ICW – Atari Brown 3 run (Vanderpuye kick)

ICL – Cooper Lester 25 pass from Berner (Strathman kick)

ICL – Pryor Reiners 6 pass from Berner (Strathman kick)

ICL – Beaver 2 run (Tyson Stanley kick)

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – ICW: Atari Brown 19-76, Reece Wheeler 18-88, Jose Ramirez 6-25, Kingstone Ross 5-30, Cooper Bruxvoort 1-(-2), Team 1-1. ICL: Brody Beaver 14-50, Leo Rozz 9-26, Emerson Berner 1-14, Pryor Reiners 3-(-4), Landon Thein 1-(-6), Team 1-(-1).

PASSING – ICW: Reece Wheeler 14-22-2 130. ICL: Emerson Berner 16-21-0 325, Landon Thein 2-2-0 53.

RECEIVING – ICW: Tayten Wheeler 6-56, Cade Towler 3-33, Cooper Bruxvoort 2-16, Ousman Keita 1-10, Jace Manson 1-10, Atari Brown 1-5. ICL: Pryor Reiners 7-152, Cooper Lester 5-140, Adrian Clerry 3-58, Tate Rettig 1-15, Victor Nakihinga 1-9, Leo Rozz 1-4.

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