Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

Liberty High at West High

When: Friday, 7 p.m.

Where: Trojan Field

It’s hot, it’s humid and football season is here.

The 2023 season kicks off in the Your Prep Sports area on Friday with a pair of area schools heating things up in a rivalry game.

Liberty High travels to West High for the first time in history on Friday for a season-opening cross-town showdown.

West High won the only previous matchup between the two rivals 27-0 in the 2020 season opener.

The Lightning are coming off the best season in program history, a 9-2 campaign that featured the first playoff win in program history.

Liberty High makes the bump up to 5A this season to compete in Iowa’s largest class for the first time since going 2-3 in the 2020 abbreviated pandemic season.

West High finished 4-5 last season after closing the season with three consecutive losses.

The Trojans are 5-4 in season openers under head coach Garrett Hartwig but have lost each of their last two openers both to Cedar Rapids Kennedy.

Players to Watch

Liberty High

Senior quarterback Graham Beckman exploded onto the scene a year ago with a big-time performance against City High in his first varsity start.

This fall Beckman will try to build on what was an all-state debut season a year ago.

The 6-foot-1, 194-pound Beckman was among the most efficient and productive quarterbacks in the state last season throwing for 2,580 yards and 31 touchdowns with just four interceptions.

Beckman also rushed for 320 yards and four touchdowns and is a threat as a scrambler as well as in the quarterback run game

West High

Two of the best quarterbacks in Class 5A go head-to-head in this one with West High junior Jack Wallace trying to get the best of Beckman in the first meeting between the two signal callers.

Already a three-year starter, Wallace is coming off a breakthrough sophomore season in which he completed 58 percent of his passes while throwing for 1,754 yards with 17 touchdowns and two interceptions.

Like his counterpart Beckman, Wallce will be working with a relatively new group of receivers on Friday.

Gone is his top target from last season in Christian Janis so look for a more experienced Wallace to spread the ball around to a group of talented yet unproven pass catchers.

Keys to the Game

West High

Stop the run.

It’s pretty simple, to improve on last year’s four-win total West High has to be better at stopping the run than it was a year ago.

That starts on Friday against Liberty High.

In four wins last season West High allowing 146.5 rushing yards per game on 4.5 yards per carry. Not bad.

In its five losses the Trojans gave up 287.4 yards per game on 6.2 yards per carry.

Liberty High averaged a solid yet unspectacular 129 rushing yards per game and 4.7 yards per carry last season but managed a combined total of 212 rushing yards in losses to Western Dubuque and Carlisle.

West High needs to make Liberty High as one-dimensional as possible on offense in order to put heat on Beckman.

Liberty High

Spread the wealth on offense.

The focal point for the Liberty High offense is Beckman, of course, but what the all-state quarterback did as well as anyone in the state last season was spread the ball around.

Five players had at least 23 receptions last season for Liberty High.

All five of those players have graduated but that doesn’t mean that Beckman needs to change the way he plays.

Beckman goes through reads as well as any high school quarterback around and the senior quarterback will need to find the open man, whoever it may be, and take what is given against an always-well schooled West High defense.

Both Teams

Win the first quarter.

It’s hot, it’s the first game and conditioning could be a factor.

However, it could be the first quarter, not the fourth quarter that makes a big difference here.

What’s the say? You can’t win a game in the first quarter but you can lose one in the first quarter.

These teams are both chomping at the bit to get going, it’s a rivalry, there will be a lot of excitement early.

It could be the team that makes the fewest makes in the opening quarter, or takes advantage of a big mistake early that is in position to win late.

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