Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

CEDAR FALLS – In a regular season win over Williamsburg last month Solon forced four turnovers.

The Spartans finished plus two in turnover margin in that 21-14 win over the Raiders and scored a momentum-shifting touchdown on a fumble return for a score.

In the semifinal rematch between the two WAMAC Conference rivals Williamsburg turned the tide on the turnover battle and the scoreboard.

Williamsburg (11-1) forced eight turnovers in a dominating 45-14 win over Solon in a Class 3A semifinal at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls.

“When you are playing a good team like Williamsburg if you turn the ball over it’s not going to go in your favor,” Solon coach Lucas Stanton said. “Any time you are in a big game, turnovers are always going to play a role so when you do that it really puts you behind the eight ball.”

Derek Weisskopf passed for 366 yards and four touchdowns, two each to Rayce Heitman and Braylon Wetjen, as Williamsburg returned to the state title game for the second straight season.

Williamsburg will face Sioux City Heelan (11-1) in the 3A title game on Friday at 1 p.m.

“It feels great honestly,” Heitman said. “It’s a great feeling to be back in the state championship for the second year in a row.”

In the regular season to Solon on October 6 Williamsburg was held to 162 total yards and 2.6 yards per play.

It was a different story in Saturday’s rematch.

Led by Weisskopf who made his third consecutive postseason start at quarterback the Raiders averaged 7.7 yards per play and 19.3 yards per pass attempt while racking up 448 yards of total offense.

Weisskopf completed 12-of-19 passes throwing touchdown passes of 68 and 75 yards to Wetjen and 18 and 19 yards to Heitman.

“I was just trusting our receivers and our offensive line,” Weisskopf said. “We were a lot better in pass protection, I wasn’t hit as much and I had a lot of time. The first time we had a lot of balls off the finger tips, it was windy and we just weren’t connecting right. I’m glad we were in doors tonight and we were really connecting.”

While the Williamsburg offense was clicking Solon (10-2) uncharacteristically struggled to hold on to the ball.

A Solon squad that committed 12 turnovers in the first 11 games of the season lost four fumbles and had four interceptions on Saturday.

“In the games that we won this year, in these kind of games, we did a pretty good job of turning the ball over on other teams and taking care of the football and winning that battle and it wasn’t our night with that,” Stanton said. “We had some unfortunate miscues in turning the ball over which is not really like us.”

Williamsburg broke a scoreless tie when Heitman took a direct snap and scored on a 1-yard touchdown run with 3:57 remaining in the first quarter.

Heitman set up the touchdown with a 36-yard reception on a third down play.

“It’s definitely great with Derek having more QB reps and knowing what balls to throw to what guys and how they like them,” Heitman said. “He was just placing the ball where ever we needed to make a play.”

In the regular season meeting Solon kept the explosive Heitman in check limiting him to two receptions for 13 yards.

Heitman had a semifinal for the ages on Saturday.

The junior had six receptions for 165 yards and two touchdowns to go with a rushing touchdown on offense.

On defense Heitman had a game-high 13 tackles with 3.5 for loss, 1.5 sacks and an interception.

“I don’t know how many tackles he had or how many catches or yards but he just took over the game,” Williamsburg coach Curt Ritchie said. “He just took over the game. I say it every day I don’t know why somebody hasn’t jumped in and taken him yet because he is really talented but he just took over the game.”

Williamsburg forced four turnovers in the second quarter while breaking open the game with 17 points.

Wetjen caught a 68-yard touchdown pass and Heitman snagged a 19-yarder from Weisskopf that gave the Raiders a 21-0 lead.

“I just feel like Derek was locked in throwing tonight, every spot he hit,” Solon senior Brett White said. “They were really locked in on offense and we just turned the ball over too much. We knew coming in that we probably had to win the turnover battle to win and we obviously lost that by a lot.”

Weisskopf had two interceptions and Kellen Cockrell had an interception for the Raiders which also got a 52-yard fumble return touchdown by Cael Moore that capped the scoring.

“I thought really the first time we played the they won the physical part of the game,” Ritchie said. “They were more physical and I thought our guys didn’t play the way we expected them to play so we wanted to change that and then the big thing is just the turnovers, eight turnovers makes everything look better.”

Solon junior quarterback Tyler Bell passed for 224 yards and a touchdown with senior Grant Knipper making six receptions for 129 yards and a 78-yard touchdown.

Sophomore Conlan Poynton rushed for 61 yards and a touchdown as Solon finished with 293 yards of total offense.

White led Solon with seven tackles while senior linebacker Barret Schade had six tackles with 2.5 for loss and Brayden Moore had 4.5 tackles with 1.5 for loss.

                                       SOL                WIL

First downs                14                    15

Rushes-yards             26-69               38-82

Comp-Att-Int             15-25-4           12-20-0

Passing yards             224                  366

Total yards                293                  448

Punts-avg.                  2-39.5              5-36

Fumbles-lost              5-4                   1-1

Penalties-yards         6-40                 6-40

Williamsburg          7   17  0  21  –  45      

Solon                          0    0   7   4   –  14

WIL – Rayce Heitman 1 run (Logan Rethwisch kick)

WIL – Braylon Wetjen 68 pass from Derek Weisskopf (Rethwisch kick)

WIL – Heitman 19 pass from Weisskopf (Rethwisch kick)

WIL – Rethwisch 26 field goal

SOL – Conlan Poynton 6 run (Grant Knipper kick)

WIL – Heitman 18 pass from Weisskopf (Rethwisch kick)

WIL – Wetjen 75 pass from Weisskopf (Rethwisch kick)

SOL – Grant Knipper 78 pass from Ty Bell (Grant Knipper kick)

WIL – Cael Moore 52 fumble return (Rethwisch kick)

Individual statistics

RUSHING – Solon: Conlan Poynton 15-61, Eddie Johnson 6-21, Brayden Miller 1-9, Tyler Bell 4-(-22). Williamsburg: Nile Sinn 15-34, Derek Weisskopf 9-28, Grady Wetjen 6-11, Dylan Weisskopf 5-7, Rayce Heitman 3-2.

PASSING – Solon: Ty Bell 15-25-4 224. Williamsburg: Derek Weisskopf 12-19-0 366, Rayce Heitman 0-1-0 0.

RECEIVING – Solon: Grant Knipper 6-139, Eddie Johnson 2-27, Brett White 2-17, Nash Kotar 2-13, Jace Janssen 1-16, Oliver Owens 1-15, Conlan Poynton 1-(-5). Williamsburg: Rayce Heitman 6-165, Braylon Wetjen 4-158, John Eichhorn 1-41, Clayten Steckly 12.

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