Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

SOLON – With a full district slate waiting ahead Friday night’s meeting with Davenport Assumption wasn’t truly a must-win game for Solon.

For a team coming off back-to-back losses the non-district finale against the Knights certainly felt like a game the Spartans had to have.

Thanks to senior quarterback Blake Timmons and a renewed emphasis on the running game the Spartans got what they needed on Friday.

Timmons rushed for 91 yards and a touchdown and also passed for 121 yards and a score as Solon snapped a two-game skid with a 35-10 win over Davenport Assumption (1-3) at Spartan Stadium in Solon.

“It wasn’t necessarily a must-win but we knew we needed to keep improving on the things that we want to improve on,” Timmons said. “The past two weeks have been a grind. We’ve learned a lot of things and we were in the mindset that two games are not going to define our season.”

Junior tailback Brett White ran for 151 yards and two touchdowns as Solon rushed for a season-high 259 yards.

The Spartans averaged better than six yards per carry and held Davenport Assumption to 84 total yards in the second half while evening its record at 2-2.

“I’ll be honest we never told our players this was a must win but myself as a coach I thought it was a must win,” Stanton said. “It sure felt like that.”

It was the third win in the past two seasons for Solon over Davenport Assumption after the Spartans won a regular season game and opening-round 3A playoff game over the Knights a eyar ago.

“I told them we beat them twice last year so they’ve had this circled on their calendar for a long time and we are both 1-2 so they are going to give us all they have,” Stanton said. “Our guys did a really good job of staying focused on the things we want them to focus on.”

The similarities between the two teams entering the game was striking.

Both Solon and Assumption were ranked early in the season and opened with impressive wins.

Each team brought a two-game losing streak into the game after dropping consecutive games to ranked opponents.

Solon fell to rival Mount Vernon and at 2A top-ranked Williamsburg the past two weeks.

“We wanted to grow and no matter who the opponent is now or in the coming weeks we want to play our best football and keep working toward that,” Timmons said. “Ultimately all of our goals are in front of us.”

In a game that both teams knew they needed to win it was Solon that landed the first big punch.

The Spartans took the opening kickoff and promptly marched 71 yards in 12 plays taking a 7-0 lead on a 1-yard touchdown run by Timmons.

Timmons threw just one pass on the drive, a 13-yard strike to Oaken Foster on third-and-eight to extend the drive.

“I think we were better at the little things tonight,” Timmons said. “We cleaned up the penalties, we were more on the same page. We went back to the basics and said our best is better than your best and went straight at them.”

Solon took a 14-0 lead when White capped a 13-play, 93-yard drive with a 31-yard touchdown run on a fourth-and-three play.

White took an option pitch from Timmons turned the corner and outran the Knight secondary for a touchdown n with 2:37 left in the first half.

Timmons was 3-for-3 passing on the 93-yard drive that featured 10 running plays.

“We wanted to get back to that more physical play style,” Timmons said. “When we can do that it opens everything else up and that was definitely a focus point this week.”

Assumption cut the lead to 14-7 on a 24 yard Angelo Jackson touchdown run on the ensuing possession but Solon got the momentum back before halftime.

The Spartans got the ball back with just 36 seconds remaining the opening half but needed just four plays to go 64 yards and went up 21-7 when Timmons hit Foster for a 17-yard touchdown pass with 8.8 seconds left.

Solon all but put the game away when Mac McCarty scored on a 4-yard run to go up 28-7 with 1:16 left in the third quarter.

The 10 points were a season-low for Assumption which scored 21 and 14 in losses to Dubuque Wahlert and North Scott.

“Davenport Assumption is a good football team,” Stanton said. “They do some good things and they have some really good players and they well-coached so to see us come out and handle that the way we did I was very proud of our players and our staff.”

SOL                DA

First Downs               18                    12

Rushes-yards             41-259             38-154

Comp-Att-Int            9-14-0             10-20-1

Passing yards            121                  80

Total yards                380                  234

Punts-Avg.                 3-30.7              5-33

Fumbles-lost               1-1                  2-0

Penalties-yards          3-20                 8-55

Davenport Assumption        0   7   0  3  –  10 

Solon                                      7  14  7  7  –  35

SOL – Blake Timmons 1 run (Grant Knipper kick)

SOL – Brett White 31 run (Knipper kick)

DA – Angelo Jackson 24 run (Billy Moore kick)

SOL – Oaken Foster 17 pass from Timmons (Knipper kick)

SOL – Mac McCarty 5 run (Knipper kick)

DA – Moore 34 field goal

SOL – White 2 run (Knipper kick)

Individual statistics

RUSHING – SOL: Brett White 22-151, Blake Timmons 12-91, Mac McCarty 4-17, Barret Schade 1-1, Zach Capper 1-(-2). DA: Derrick Bass 14-82, Angelo Jackson 10-41, Jake Timmons 9-28, Colin Patterson 4-19, Adam Votroubek 1-(-16).

PASSING – SOL: Blake Timmons 9-12-0 121, Brayden Ruskey 0-2-0 0. DN: Jake Timmons 10-17-0 80, Adam Votroubek 0-3-1 0.

RECEIVING – SOL: Cole Buffington 4-60, Oaken Foster 4-54, Brett White 1-7. DA: Bauer Caspers 6-35, Derrick Bass 3-37, Angelo Jackson 1-8.

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