Your Prep Sports

Beau Cornwell showed he could win games with his arm last week throwing four touchdown passes in a season-opening win over West Liberty.

As Cornwell demonstrated on Friday he’s capable of doing a lot more than just throw the ball.

Cornwell threw for 194 yards and a touchdown, ran for another score and kicked a single-game school record three field goals to lead West Branch (2-0) to a 30-6 win over West Burlington/Notre Dame (0-2) at Bill Nelson Field in West Burlington.

“We definitely came out with a lot of confidence and eagerness and were ready to play,” Cornwell said. “We came out with a lot of intensity which really helped us.”

Cornwell completed 18-of-29 passes for 194 yards and threw a 55-yard touchdown pass to Ben Thompson as West Branch avenged a 27-18 loss to the Falcons last season.

The Junior quarterback also ran for 12 yards and a 1-yard touchdown and connected on field goals of 29, 24 and 39 yards.

“Usually when West Branch throws the ball 30 times it’s a loss but it is part of our persona now,” West Branch coach Butch Pedersen said. “We can do both now we can throw it and we can run it and the kick game was good, Beau was incredible as a field goal kicker and a punter tonight.”  

Sophomore running back Tanner Lukavsky record his second straight 100-yard game, rushing for 116 yards and a score as West Branch rolled up 365 yards of total offense.

West Branch split its plays and yardage nearly 50-50 on Friday, rushing for 141 yards on 36 totes and throwing for 194 yards on 30 attempts.

“We are so diversified now, a lot more so than we have been,” Pedersen said. “We ran the ball 33 times and we threw the ball 30 times so that is pretty balanced.”

West Branch didn’t waste any time taking control on Friday.

The Bear defense forced West Burlington/Notre Dame to go 3-and-out to start the game and went 55-yards in eight plays for a touchdown.

Lukavsky put West Branch on top with a 4-yard scoring jaunt.

“That was very important to get up early,” Cornwell said. “Our defense did a great job with getting us good field position and that helped our confidence a lot. Starting at the 50 is always good instead of starting drives at the opposite 20.”

West Branch was dominant in the opening half, rolling up more than 250 yards of offense while holding the Falcons to one first down and 16 total yards.

The Bears took a 14-0 lead when Cornwell scored on a 1-yard run with 9:08 left in the first half.

West Branch then added Cornwell field goals on three consecutive drives to end the half and take a 23-0 lead into the locker room.

“I thought that at times we were extremely dominant and there some other times that I thought we needed to be a little more productive in the red zone,” Pedersen said. “We are happy that we scored 30 points but we could have scored two or three more touchdowns really easy in that first half.”

That was plenty for West Branch which forced West Burlington to punt on its first 10 possessions of the game.

West Branch limited the Falcons to 128 yards of total offense and just 64 rushing yards on 31 carries.

“We are getting better,” Pedersen said. “I am extremely pleased with the progress that this team has made. They are one of the more coachable teams that I have been around. They are young and they listen to us and they believe in what we are telling them and they really play well together.”

Jacob Graves caught seven passes for 82 yards while Thompson finished with six grabs for 85 yards in the win.

“We have improved every day,” Cornwell said. “We watched a lot of film on them and we went out there and did our thing.”
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                        West Branch West Burlington

First Downs               13                    6                     

Rushes-Yards            36-141             31-64

Comp-Att-Int             18-30-0            12-17-0

Passing Yards            194                  64

Punts-Avg.                 6-34.8              11-29.3           

Fumbles-Lost             3-1                   2-1

Penalties-Yards         9-60                 6-56

West Branch              6  17  7  0  –  30

West Burlington        0   0   0  6  –   6

WB – Tanner Lukavsky 4 run (Kick failed)

WB – Beau Cornwell 1 run (Thompson pass from Cornwell)

WB – Cornwell 29 Field Goal

WB – Cornwell 24 Field Goal

WB – Cornwell 39 Field Goal

WB – Thompson 55 pass from Cornwell (Javier Zamudio kick)

WBND – 8 Run

Individual Results

RUSHING – West Branch: Tanner Lukavsky 18-116, Beau Cornwell 3-12, Levi Kleinmeyer 4-9, Dakota Kaalberg 4-5, Jacob Graves 4-0, John Hatfield 1-1, Brett Schiele 1-(-2).

PASSING – West Branch: Beau Cornwell 18-29-0 194; Brett Schiele 0-1-0 0.

RECEIVING – West Branch: Jacob Graves 7-82, Ben Thompson 6-85, Brady Lukavsky 2-18, Tanner Lukavsky 2-6, Wyatt Goodale 1-3.