Ryan Murken

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – Facing a 10-point deficit less than nine minutes into the game its easy for a team to panic, get away from its gameplan and abandon the running game.

Or do all of those things.

For Liberty High on Friday night it was the exact opposite.

After falling into a 17-7 first-quarter hole Liberty High (4-1) leaned on its running game, it’s senior quarterback and its offensive line and rallied for an impressive 44-31 win over West High (4-1) in front of a near capacity crowd at Trojan Field in Iowa City.

“We were down but we didn’t play like we were down,” Liberty High senior quarterback Reece Rettig said. “We didn’t want to play like we were down. When we play like that we get scared, we get timid and we have to play with confidence and that’s what we did.”

Liberty High had 175 rushing yards in the second half snapping a 24-all tie at halftime to post its second consecutive win over cross-town rival West High.

Rettig ran for 148 yards and three touchdowns, racking up 109 yards and two touchdowns in the second half, as the Lighting ran for a season-high 321 yards.

“Big shout out to the o-line,” Rettig said. “Our guys have been coming along, coming along, we had a great week of practice and they got the confidence they needed now and we ran the ball and we trusted the o-line and they really stepped it up.”

Junior Brody Beaver rushed for 134 yards and two touchdowns for Liberty High which rebounded from a 27-24 loss at Johnston last week.

After committing 12 turnovers in the first four games of the season Liberty High didn’t commit a turnover on Friday and finished with 403 yards of total offense.

“You see what our offense can do when we don’t turn it over, we are going to score a lot,” Chandler said. “We are a team that can have long drives, we sustain drives, we are going to go for it on fourth down every now and then, our quarterback is really smart and does a lot of things that high school kids don’t do well.”

West High raced to a 17-7 lead less than nine minutes into the game behind a pair of touchdown receptions from senior Ethan Headings.

Headings gave the Trojans a 10-0 lead with a 61-yard touchdown grab from Reece Wheeler and made it 17-7 on a 56-yard catch and run on a slant from Wheeler with 3:13 remaining in the opening quarter.

West High took a 24-17 lead when Wheeler scored on a 35-yard run on a quarterback keeper with 4:18 remaining in the first half but Liberty High answered to reclaim the momentum before halftime.

Rettig capped an eight-play, 73-yard scoring drive with a 9-yard touchdown pass to sophomore Leo Rozz with 23 seconds remaining in the first half to tie the score at 24-24.

“Right before half when we stopped them and scored we knew we weren’t losing,” Liberty High senior offensive lineman Jaryn Sertterh said. “That helped out our confidence a lot right there.”

Liberty High dominated the second half.

The Lightning opened the half with a 13-play, 83-yard touchdown drive capped by a 32-yard run by Rettig.

Beaver had five carries on the opening drive of the half and caught a pass and Rettig had four carries.

“We had a chip on our shoulder,” Beaver said. “We came out and wanted to run the ball.”

Liberty High followed with a 11-play, 62-yard touchdown drive that was capped by a 1-yard plunge by Rettig that gave the Lightning a 38-24 lead with 10:27 remaining.

“We had a lot of confidence,” Sertterh said. “Our whole game plan this week was to run the football. Get behind the o-line and run it down their throats.”

Liberty High held the ball for 10:54 in the third quarter running 23 offensive plays in the quarter compared to five for West High.

“We got stops, that’s the number one thing,” Chandler said. “One defense in the first half we’d play good for two plays and we’d give up a big one and we got off the field in the third and the fourth quarter and our offense was still humming.”

Liberty High put the game out of reach when Beaver scored his second touchdown of the game on 2-yard run with 6:00 remaining.

Beaver was limited to five carries through the first four games while recovering from an injury but was crucial on Friday adding a 50-yard touchdown run.

“It was great to get Brody Beaver back fully healthy,” Chandler said. “He’s a kid who we were really excited about all summer and had a hamstring injury and just struggled getting back from it but you saw his explosiveness tonight and he really adds an element to our offense.”

Wheeler threw for 242 yards and three touchdowns and rushed for 29 yards and a touchdown for West High.

Headings had seven receptions for 196 yards and three touchdowns and Campbell Janis rushed for 67 yards for the Trojans.

“Good teams will beat you when you don’t play your best and we didn’t play very well tonight,” West High coach Garrett Hartwig said.

ICL                 ICW

First downs                21                    16

Rushes-yards             50-321             23-116

Comp-Att-Int            7-12-0             13-20-0

Passing yards             82                    242

Total yards                403                  358

Punts-Avg.                 2-36                 1-35

Fumbles-lost              1-0                   0-0

Penalties-yards          6-50                 8-90

Liberty High              7  17  7  13  –  44

West High                  17  7  0   7   –  31   

ICW – Adam Salem 19 field goal

ICW – Ethan Headings 61 pass from Reece Wheeler (Salem kick)

ICL – Brody Beaver 50 run (Collin Weis kick)

ICW – Headings 56 pass from Wheeler (Salem kick)

ICL – Weis 27 field goal

ICL – Reece Rettig 4 run (Weis kick)

ICW – Wheeler 35 run (Salem kick)

ICL – Leo Rozz 9 pass from Rettig (Weis kick)

ICL – Rettig 32 run (Weis kick)

ICL – Rettig 1 run (Weis kick)

ICL – Beaver 2 run (Kick failed0

ICW – Headings 20 pass from Wheeler (Salem kick)  

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – ICL: Reece Rettig 20-148, Brody Beaver 19-134, Logan Laubenthal 5-26, Adrian Clerry 4-10, Leo Rozz 1-2, Pryor Reiners 1-1. ICW: Campbell Janis 10-67, Reece Wheeler 6-29, Kingstone Ross 3-8, La’Marrie Carter 2-5, Headings 1-7, Lowden VanDaele 1-(-5).

PASSING – ICL: Reece Rettig 7-12-0 82. ICW: Reece Wheeler 13-20-0 242.

RECEIVING – ICL: Adrian Clerry 3-38, Brody Beaver 2-17, Logan Laubenthal 1-18, Leo Rozz 1-9. ICW: Ethan Headings 7-196, Henry Elser 2-15, Julian Manson 2-7, Cade Towler 1-6, Neil James 1-18.

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