Don Bosco rolls over Midland in 8-player semifinal

CEDAR FALLS — On its best day, Midland knew it would have its hands full when it faced Don Bosco in the 8-player state football semifinals.

Thursday was not the Eagles' best day.

A pair of errant snaps in shotgun formation early in the game, seven total fumbles and an offense that became one-dimensional without injured quarterback Alex Martens added up to a 72-0 loss in Midland's first trip to the UNI-Dome.

The first misguided snap came on the third play of the game and resulted in Austin Svoboda's recovery and five-yard touchdown return for Don Bosco, playing in the semifinals for the fourth time in the last five years.

Midland overcame another high snap and 20-yard loss on its second series, marching to the Dons' 4-yard line before Dawson Paulsen was wrestled down for a two-yard loss on fourth-and-goal.

Then, on Don Bosco's first offensive snap after an illegal procedure penalty, Svoboda cut back to open space and raced 77 yards for a 16-0 Dons lead.

'We had a game plan coming in and we started off on our (second) drive driving it down pretty nice at the end of the first quarter and we didn't punch it in,' said Midland Coach Casey Hack. 'It seemed like it kind of steamrolled from there.

'We just didn't execute the way we needed to in order to compete against a really good football team.'

Don Bosco blew the game open with 36 unanswered points in the second quarter when it scored on all four of its possessions.

Midland, which was averaging 237.4 passing yards per game with Martens at the helm, never got that part of its offense into rhythm. Martens suffered a broken collarbone in last week's quarterfinals.

'It changes a lot when you lose someone in a quarterfinal game,' Hack said. 'You try to put some new stuff in and you have to simplify everything. Alex is a really good player, and the playbook is pretty diverse. When you lose a player like that you have to have guys play out of their comfort zones and you kind of have guys playing out of position at multiple positions.'

Don Bosco scored on every possession but one and racked up 365 yards on just 29 attempts. Svoboda finished with 148 on four rushes, and Austin Hellman added 109 on 13 carries.

The win sends the Dons (11-1) back to the 8-player championship game for the second consecutive season and for the fourth time in five years. They will play Harris-Lake Park.

'I think it helps that we've been here quite a few times,' said Don Bosco Coach Colby Yoder, whose team was defeated in the title game a year ago. 'We kind of know the atmosphere, and the expectation of our kids when we get here is to compete hard and play for 48 (minutes) and see what happens.

'We got some good breaks with the turnovers, but I thought we really controlled the line of scrimmage up front. I just felt we controlled the tempo of the game, too, from the start.'

Midland (9-3), which fell to Don Bosco 52-14 in its second game of the regular season, finished with 102 yards of total offense, a figure that was heavily impacted by the two errant snaps early and several muffed handoffs that cost the Eagles 62 yards in losses.

'We knew what they were going to do,' said Hack. 'They just came out and executed well. They deserved to win.'