Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Long-time City High coach Dan Sabers had a succinct summary for his team’s 35-0 loss to Pleasant Valley on Friday.

“They schooled us,” Sabers said. “They schooled us pretty good.”

Sabers simple assessment seemed straight on.

Pleasant Valley (2-0) gave the Little Hawks lessons on both sides of the ball Friday at Bates Field.

The Spartans scored touchdowns on five of their first six drives, used their patented triple option attack to grind out 290 yards on the ground and handed City High (1-1) its first shutout since a 34-0 loss to Ottumwa in 2014.

For the young Little Hawks the key is using the loss as a learning experience.

“Coach said we just put this behind this year and just learn from this,” City High senior receiver Zach Jones said. “That’s the main thing we talked about at halftime was just learning from this.”

City High had won back-to-back one-score games over Pleasant Valley the past two seasons but the Spartans took the drama out of Friday’s matchup early.

Senior Arthur Braden rushed for 131 yards and three touchdowns in the first half as Pleasant Valley took a 27-0 lead into intermission.

Junior quarterback Max Slavens directed first-half touchdown drives of 69, 44, 90 and 66 yards, rushing for 67 yards and throwing for 73 in the first half.

“We had a good win last week and then came against an option team that really does that very well and any coach will tell you that’s a tough lesson to get thrown at this early,” Sabers said. “I hope that they will learn from it and learn about all the things we talk about, the little things as coaches that we have known for years and they figured out tonight that some of those make a difference.”

Operating behind an offensive line led by seniors Zach James (6-5, 295), Carter Sergeant (6-2, 220) and John McGrath (6-0, 235) and junior Evan Kilstrom (6-4, 295) the Spartans had 214 of their 290 rushing yards in the first half while averaging better than seven yards per carry.

“I think certainly we have a pretty good offensive line and they are coming together well,” Pleasant Valley coach Rusty VanWetzinga. “Those guys have been doing it for a while. They are athletic kids, they can get on guys, they can get to the second level and give our running backs some seams to allow us to move the chains.”

Pleasant Valley took the opening kickoff and marched 69 yards in nine plays and took a 6-0 lead on a 5-yard touchdown run by junior Ben Royer.

Braden scored on touchdown runs of 1, 3 and 2 yards on consecutive Pleasant Valley drives to end the half.

His 2-yard plunge with 7.2 seconds left before halftime capped a 13-play, 66-yard drive that took 2:33.

“Last year and the year before we had a lot of seniors out there and stopped that option offense and boy they threw some wrinkles at us and we just weren’t prepared as well,” Sabers said. “That’s me and everybody but our young defense was exposed tonight and credit to them, they just took it to us.”

City High had a pair of chances to cut into the lead in the second quarter but twice turned the ball over on downs inside the Spartan 30 yard line.

Chris Johnson was stopped for no-gain on a fourth-and-1 play from the Pleasant Valley 9 yard line with 8:53 left and senior quarterback Bryce Hunger was sacked on a fourth-and-3 from the 29.

“I felt that we left some plays out there, some points out there,” Jones said. “I feel like we definitely could have made more plays we just have to focus a little more.”

Hunger threw for 156 yards but Pleasant Valley kept the explosive Jones in check for most of the game.

Jones caught three passes for 67 yards while sophomore Keshawn Christian caught two passes good for 86 yards.

“I thought our defense played fantastic all game long,” VanWetzinga said. “Jones is a heck of a player and we knew that was a go-to guy for them and we kind of made some one-dimensional and he caught some but they were tough catches so I was really happy with the way our secondary played.”

Senior running back Davonte Foster limped off the field in the first quarter and did not return for City High, finishing with 14 yards on the ground.

City High was held to 57 rushing yards as a team with Johnson rushing for 19 yards while spelling Foster.

“Chris Johnson is a good back we just have to improve there, Davonte has done good things for us but at the same time I don’t think it was going to make that big of a difference,” Sabers said. “Pleasant Valley came and out and really played well and were well prepared and they were the better team no question.”

City High returns to action on Friday, traveling to Ames for the Little Cy-Hawk game.

                                    PV                   ICH

First Downs               20                    8

Rushes-Yards            45-290             24-57

Comp-Att-Int             7-15-0              7-19-2

Passing Yards            110                  156

Punts-Avg.                 3-38.7              3-38.3

Fumbles-Lost             3-0                   1-0

Penalties-Yards         6-48                 6-48

Pleasant Valley          13  14  8  0  –  35 

City High                   0     0   0  0  –   0

PV – Ben Royer 5 run (kick failed)  

PV – Arthur Braden 1 run (Nathan Hamilton kick)

PV – Braden 3 run (Hamilton kick)

PV – Braden 2 run (Hamilton kick)

PV – Brennan Sarver 10 pass from Max Slavens (Caleb Carius pass from Slavens)

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – PV: Arthur Braden 18-137, Max Slavens 9-67, Brennan Sarver 6-42, Ben Royer 2-17, Brandon Lee 4-15, Cade Collier 4-11, Will Mask 2-1. ICH: Chris Johnson 7-19, Bryce Hunger 7-16, Davonte Foster 6-14, Zach Jones 1-4, Douglas Burtch 2-4, Quincy Wells 1-0.

PASSING – PV: Max Slavens 6-14-0 93, Will Mask 1-1-0 17. ICH: Bryce Hunger 7-18-2 156, Quincy Wells 0-1-0 0.

RECEIVING – PV: Ben Royer 2-35, Caleb Carius 1-31, Jared Wiley 1-17, Nick Jordahl 1-10, Brennan Sarver 1-10, Will Mask 1-7. ICH: Zach Jones 3-67, Keshawn Christian 2-86, Malik Kimber 2-3.