Your Prep Sports

Beau Cornwell and his West Branch teammates weren’t perfect on Friday against Wapello.

Then again Cornwell and the Bears didn’t miss perfection by much.

Cornwell completed all 10 of his passes while throwing for 173 yards and four touchdowns as Class 1A third-ranked West Branch rolled to a 49-14 win at Wapello (1-1).

West Branch scored touchdown on its first six drives while rolling up 344 yards of total offense in the first half.

Cornwell connected with senior senior Brett Schiele for scoring strikes of 9, 33 and 10 yards, also hit Trey Eagle for a 29-yard scoring strike and ran for a 14-yard touchdown all before halftime as West Branch built a 49-0 lead.

Schiele became the sixth player in program history to catch three touchdown passes in a game and Tanner Lukavsky rushed for 109 yards and a score and returned an interception 40 yards for a touchdown.

West Branch took the opening kickoff and needed just seven plays and 2:29 to go 94 yards for a touchdown as Lukavsky put West Branch up 7-0 with a 55-yard touchdown run.

Following a Wapello punt on its opening possession the Bears put their longest drive of the game, an 11-play, 80-yard march that took nearly five minutes off the clock.

Cornwell capped the drive with a 9-yard strike to Schiele that made it 14-0 Bears.

Wapello went 3-and-out on its next two possessions and West Branch followed each with a touchdown. First a 33-yard strike to Schiele and then a 29-yard touchdown pass to Eagle that put West Branch up 28-0.

Lukavsky returned an interception 28 yards for a touchdown to put the Bears up 35-0 and Cornwell scored on a 14-yard run to push the margin to 42-0.

It was 49-0 after Schiele joined Pat Reid, Ricky Riley, Pat Gates, Tyler Donovan and Ben Thompson as West Branch players to grab three touchdown passes in a game with a 10 yarder.

Schiele finished with four receptions for 76 yards while Eagle grabbed two passes for 46 yards and a touchdown.

Morgan Hartz and Lukavsky each had two sacks to lead the West Branch defensive effort.

Brad Hunger had a team-high 5.5 tackles.

Wapello got on the board on a 92-yard run by senior Ricky Pforts who added a 3-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter and finished with 152 yards on 16 carries.

                               WB               Wapello

First Downs              18                    7

Rushes-yards           29-200           31-199

Comp-Att-Int            11-12-0             5-9-1

Passing yards           173                  26

Total yards                373                  225

Punts-Avg.                1-25                 5-28

Fumbles-lost             0-0                   2-1

Penalties-yards         2-24                 5-29

West Branch  14  35  0   0  –  49

Wapello          0    7   0   7  –  14

WB – Tanner Lukavsky 55 run (Beau Cornwell kick)

WB – Brett Schiele 9 pass from Cornwell (Cornwell kick)

WB – Schiele 33 pass from Cornwell (Cornwell kick)

WB – Trey Eagle 29 pass from Cornwell (Cornwell kick)

WB – Lukavsky 28 interception return (Cornwell kick)

WB – Cornwell 14 run (Cornwell kick)

WB – Schiele 10 pass from Cornwell (Cornwell kick)

WAP – Ricky Pforts 92 run (Hector Zepeda kick)

WAP – Pforts 4 run (Zepeda kick)

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – WB: Tanner Lukavsky 10-109, Wyatt Hamby 4-33, Beau Cornwell 4-27, John Yates 6-23, Morgan Hartz 4-14.

PASSING – WB: Beau Cornwell 10-10-0 171, Kelby Burger 1-2-0 2.

RECEIVING – WB: Brett Schiele 4-76, Trey Eagle 2-46, Zach Thompson 2-18, Tanner Lukavsky 1-25, Brady Lukavsky 1-6, Dakota Kaalberg 1-2.