Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

NORTH LIBERTY – Losses always hurt.

This one will sting a little bit deeper for Liberty High.

Pleasant Valley scored 27 second-half points to erase a 20-0 halftime deficit and held on for a 27-26 win over Liberty High in a Class 5A thriller on Friday night at Liberty Stadium.

“This one will sting,” Liberty High coach Mitch Wieland said. “For me as a coach some of the game management things I’ll eat. I’ll take responsibility for a lot of that but this one stings for sure.”

Pleasant Valley scored twice in the final 7:08 taking its only lead of the game on an 8-yard touchdown pass from Colin Townsend to Kellan Rogers with 41 seconds remaining.
The win was the fifth in a row for Pleasant Valley (5-2) which was 18^th this week in the Class 5A RPI rankings used to determine playoff qualifiers.

Liberty High dropped to 4-3 with the loss.

“We have to play all four quarters, this game it’s 48 minutes,” Wieland said. “Kudos to coach (Rusty) Van Wetzinga and Pleasant Valley’s staff, they hit us with some good things the air out of all things, we will tip our cap to that.”

Liberty High outgained Pleasant Valley 287 to 62 in the opening half while building a 20-0 halftime cushion.

Emerson Berner threw for 244 of his 322 yards in the first half and tossed a 37-yard touchdown strike to Pryor Reiners.

The Lightning took a 20-0 lead into the break when Andrew Strathman connected on his second field goal of the half, a 27 yarder on the final play of the second quarter.

Liberty High limited a Pleasant Valley offense that entered the game ranking second in Class 5A with 266 rushing yards to just 21 first-half rushing yards.

“Those guys have really bought into attacking their gaps, to penetrating and to stopping the run first and foremost,” Wieland said. “That’s at the top of our board every week, every meeting, stop the run and they are doing it.”

Pleasant Valley went to work on the deficit immediately in the second half cutting the lead to 20-7 on a 40-yard touchdown strike from Townsend to Maddux Murdock on the opening possession of the second half.

The Spartans trimmed the lead to 20-14 less than six minutes later when Townsend found Rogers for an 17-yard touchdown strike.

“We had said all week if we can get these guys to throw it we feel good,” Wieland said. “The game plan was to attack early and often. I told the guys at halftime I thought we executed the game plan extremely well.”

Liberty High answered with a 18-play, 67-yard touchdown drive that was capped by a 4-yard touchdown pass from Berner to Reiners that pushed the Liberty High lead to 26-14 with 8:24 left in the game.

Pleasant Valley again surged back.

The Spartans scored in three plays, pulling to within 26-21 on a Daughtrey Vanzuiden 7-yard touchdown run.

After a Liberty High punt the Spartans put together the game-winning drive, a 15-play, 77-yard march that was aided by three Liberty High penalties.

Townsend completed 9-of-11 passes for 170 yards and three touchdowns in the second half, including the game-winner to Rogers with 41 seconds left.

“They had a few tricks up their sleeve with their game plan,” Wieland said. “They had some really good passing concepts that we weren’t prepared for and we didn’t have answers for.”

Liberty High got the ball to the Spartan 33 yard line with four seconds remaining but a host of laterals ended with a fumble at the Pleasant Valley 20 yard line.

Berner finished 29-of-47 through the air for 322 yards and Reiners had 14 receptions for 184 yards and two touchdowns.

Brody Beaver rushed for 55 yards and a touchdown and Leo Rozz ran for 42 yards for the Lightning.

There were so many positives still, I thought Pryor Reiners had an unbelievable game, I thought Emerson (Berner) did such a good job, Brody Beaver had a great game, Leo Rozz, we had some guys step in big spots we just didn’t get enough stops.”

                                        ICL                 PV

First downs                21                    15

Rushes-yards             26-111             18-74

Comp-Att-Int            31-49-0           14-24-1

Passing yards             330                  211

Total yards                441                  285

Punts-Avg.                 2-26                 3-28.3

Fumbles-lost              1-0                   1-0

Penalties-yard           10-87               7-44                      

Pleasant Valley          0   0  14  13  –  27

Liberty High              3  17  0    6   –  26 

ICL – Andrew Strathman 28 field goal

ICL – Brody Beaver 22 run (Strathman kick)

ICL – Pryor Reiners 37 pass from Emerson Berner (Strathman kick)

ICL – Strathman 27 field goal

PV – Maddux Murdock 40 pass from Colin Townsend (Gabe Russman kick)

PV – Kellan Rogers 17 pass from Townsend (Russman kick)

ICL – Reiners 4 pass from Berner (Strathman kick)

PV – Daughtrey Vanzuiden 7 run (Russman kick)

PV – Rogers 8 pass from Townsend (Russman kick)

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – ICL: Brody Beaver 15-55, Leo Rozz 6-42, Emerson Berner 5-14. PV: Colin Townsend 7-37, Ashton Stoflet 7-28, Daughtrey Vanzuiden 2-13, Mason Mcfate 2-12, Tripp Barclay 4-(-11), Elijah Bolaji 1-(-4), Gavin Holmes 1-(-1).

PASSING – ICL: Emerson Berner 29-47-0 322. Victor Nakihinga 1-1-0 8, Pryor Reiners 0-1-0 0. PV: Colin Townsend 13-23-1 168, Asthon Stoflet 1-1-0 43.

RECEIVING – ICL: Pryor Reiners 14-184, Cooper Lester 7-72, Adrian Clerry 3-14, Leo Rozz 3-10, Tate Rettig 2-(-3), Victor Nakihinga 1-40, Ethan Meidlinger 1-8. PV: Maddox Murdock 4-108, Tripp Barclay 3-62, Kellan Rogers 3-26,  Daughtrey Vanzuiden 2-17, Ashton Stoflet 1-9, Jameson Andresen 1-9.

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