March 28, 2024

Cardinals battle late, lose to Gilbert; PCM upsets CMB; Tigerhawks and Hawks win

Well, Week 5 of Iowa high school football action is in the books. Newton faltered at home while PCM upended No. 9 CMB in Monroe, Lynnville-Sully notched a homecoming victory and Colfax-Mingo won on the road.

Gilbert 50, Newton 34

“We’re not giving up,” was the message Newton High senior captains Duncan Lee, Joseph Banfield and Bryce Tish conveyed after a 50-34 loss on homecoming night for the Cardinals.

The Cardinals could have folded, trailing Gilbert’s Tigers, 43-7 at halftime in the Class 3A District 6 contest Friday at H.A. Lynn Stadium. They didn’t.

Newton controlled the entire second half, outscoring the visiting Tigers 27-7. Banfield and senior Dalton Nevels each scored two touchdowns for the Cardinals — Banfield’s two in the third quarter and Nevels’ two coming in the fourth period. Nevels had Newton’s lone first-half touchdown.

Unfortunately, the Tigers had powered their way to the big lead on six touchdown runs, five were on runs of more than 40 yards. Junior running back Cody Dvorak had scoring runs of 44, 45 and 67 yards in the first half. Zachary Becker scored twice and quarterback Steven Lawrence raced 63 yards to paydirt.

Lawrence scored for the Tigers with 2:25 left in the game. Newton had turned the Tigers away with a defensive stand at the Cardinal 4-yard line with 9:13 remaining in the fourth quarter.

Gilbert had the ball first-and-goal at the Newton 7, but couldn’t score. Lee dropped Dvorak in the backfield on a fourth-and-goal run.

The Cardinals marched 96 yards on the running of Banfield and Nevels to score. Three times it appeared Newton had scored when penalties wiped out the touchdowns. Finally, Nevels turned the corner for an 8-yard touchdown run. Josh Gulling kicked the extra point.

“We just have to play better. I’m very proud of our guys. They did not give up,” Newton head coach Ed Ergenbright said. “We’re in a tough situation trying to teach kids new positions every week because of injuries. We just have to keep scratching to find a defense which fits the personnel we have to work with.”

Newton is 0-5 overall and 0-3 in district play. The Cardinals host Ballard in a district game Friday.

“We have to flip the switch,” Lee said. “In the first half, we weren’t playing hard enough, me included. We have to have the mentality to go out there and shut people down like we did tonight in the second half.”

Tish said the second half was good for the Cardinals as to what type of team they can be. Tish, Banfield and Lee said the seniors are striving to help the entire team get on the same level and finish the season strong.

Newton’s freshmen lost to Gilbert 27-14.

PCM 49, CMB 27

MONROE — Logan Gilman completed 16-of-20 passes for 265 yards, and he scored four total touchdowns in the Mustangs' home win over the rival Raiders during Class 2A District 7 play on Friday.

It was 21-all at halftime, but PCM took advantage of a missed fourth and four play by CMB early in the third quarter and outscored the Raiders 28-6 in the final two periods.

"It's a huge win," PCM coach Greg Bonnett said. "It's a rivalry game, they are a ranked team and it's a home game. I knew it was going to be a lot of fun. We were having fun at halftime when it was 21-21."

PCM's defense came up with a stop on fourth and four from CMB's own 30-yard line and then the offense took advantage of the short field as Gilman found Noah Clark for the 30-yard touchdown.

That put the Mustangs up 28-21 and Gilman added a 13-yard touchdown run and a 42-yard touchdown pass to Clark later in the game to pull away from the Raiders, who suffered their first loss of the season.

"We knew we were going to have to outscore them. It felt like we were going to struggle to get stops and I didn't want to give them any extra momentum," CMB coach Rob Luther said of the decision to go for it on fourth down. "I am not sure I would do it again. I always have confidence in our offense though. It was fourth and four and we need to go get it."

Four CMB starters were suspended at 3 p.m. Friday for disciplinary reasons and that impacted what the Raiders did on both sides of the ball.

Blake Coughenour came into the game as Class 2A's third leading rusher but he did not play. Neither did two-way starter Tucker Maxwell, starting defensive back John Newton and kicker Bailey Holgate.

"We have a lot of kids that can do a lot of things, but we didn't have the week of preparation to figure all of that out," Luther said.

CMB led 14-7 early in the first half following back-to-back touchdown runs by Hunter McWhirter, who went the whole way at quarterback for the Raiders. McWhirter finished with 190 passing yards, 60 rushing yards and three touchdowns, but the offense never got going in the second half.

Brady Stover also left the game in the third quarter with an injury and did not return.

PCM's Logan Littrell had 138 rushing yards on 24 carries and he scored twice. Clark finished with five catches for 115 yards and two scores, while Reid Jenkins had four catches for 76 yards and Luke Greiner added five catches for 61 yards and a score.

Jenkins also had a fumble recovery, an interception, six solo tackles, three assisted tackles and three tackles for loss to lead the defense. Austin Sneller had nine solo tackles and four assisted tackles and Littrell finished with five solo tackles and 10 assisted tackles.

Charles Robertson finished with 13 solo tackles and two tackles for loss to lead the CMB defense.

Before Stover left the game with an injury, he rushed for 60 yards on 11 carries and hauled in nine passes for 129 yards.

It was PCM's fourth win over CMB in the last five years. PCM improved to 4-1 on the season and is now 3-0 in 2A District 7 play. CMB drops to 4-1 and is 1-1 in district play.

Colfax-Mingo 48, North Mahaska 13

NEW SHARON — Jared Myers threw six touchdown passes, Blake Summy had three touchdown receptions and Jacob Lietz scored twice as the Tigerhawks stayed atop the Class A District 7 standings with an easy road win.

The Tigerhawks led 35-6 at the half and cruised to their fourth straight win. Colfax-Mingo also begins district play 3-0.

Gabe Simpson caught two of Myers' touchdown passes, while Lietz caught a touchdown pass and rushed for another.

Lynnville-Sully 42, Iowa Valley 14

SULLY — Game-planning for Lynnville-Sully’s opponents just got tougher. The Hawks have relied on a strong running game all season, but they only had 100 yards on the ground in their 42-14 win over Iowa Valley Friday.

“We found a new way to win — a passing game,” Hawk head coach Mike Parkinson said. “We we’re 21-of -26 for more than 300 yards tonight. We even had three interceptions, so we were catching everything that went into the air.”

Junior quarterback Tyler Van Zante was 20-of-25 for 303 yards to lead the air attack for the Hawks. Van Zante threw a touchdown pass to Noah Engle and ran for a score. Kobe Fisk had four catches for 135 yards, but had two touchdown runs in the second half.

Evan Squires and Sage Ehresman had first-quarter touchdown runs. Ehresman rushed for 31 yards on five carries and did not play much in the second half.

“Iowa Valley played hard, but our kids responded so well to what we needed to do after losing to Colfax-Mingo two weeks ago,” Parkinson said.

Lynnville-Sully led 28-14 at halftime and scored once in each of the final two quarters of play. Iowa Valley’s Bennett Goettsch had 111 yards on 16 carries and a touchdown.

The Hawks are 2-1 in Class A District 7 play and 3-2 overall. They travel to Brooklyn to take on Class A top-ranked BGM Friday.