Spirit Lake ends North Fayette Valley’s title defense

CEDAR FALLS - The guy's a straight shooter. You've got to give it up to Bob Lape for that.

He could have bemoaned this or whined about that after his North Fayette Valley TigerHawks were beaten by Spirit Lake, 49-34, in a Class 2A playoff semifinal Saturday night at the UNI-Dome.

But he didn't. There were no excuses here.

'If you are not good enough, you are not good enough,” the head coach said. 'We're not going to cry about it. We're going to go back to work next week and get ready for next year. You can't do the things we did in this game and win. You just can't. We know that.”

That's brutal honesty, and it's pretty refreshing. North Fayette Valley (10-3), last year's 2A champion, piled up over 500 yards of offense (503), had two running backs top 100 yards, got an uncharacteristic 155 yards passing, scored five touchdowns ...

'And still lost,” Lape said.

A lot of that had to do with the abilities of Spirit Lake quarterback Logan Backhaus. It's hard to top seven TDs, and that's what the 6-foot-4, 200-pound senior accounted for.

He had four touchdown passes, two each to Billy Brown (a University of North Dakota basketball recruit) and Dallas Poock. Add three rushing TDs, and the kid had one hellacious game.

Backhaus ran Spirit Lake's spread offense with aplomb, completing 13 of 20 throws for 237 yards and 'adding” 183 yards on the ground.

'I couldn't do that without my linemen,” he said, knowing whose bread to butter. 'They held up those three big guys of theirs up front and gave me time to throw it. And they gave me running lanes to run through.”

'He can do it all,” said NFV's Kedrick Bemiss, who saw more than enough of Backhaus from his safety position on defense. 'He can run it and pass it. He makes good reads, is just hard to defend.”

That being said, this was a 14-14 game after a quarter and just 28-20 at the half. But North Fayette Valley fumbled the second-half kickoff, which led to a Spirit Lake touchdown.

Fullback Trey Kuhens was stuffed for no gain on 4th-and-1 near midfield on NFV's ensuing possession. Backhaus ran a sweep left 44 yards for another TD two plays later, and that 42-20 spread was way too much for the ground-oriented TigerHawks to overcome.

They didn't quit, getting a touchdown run and pass from QB Bemiss to close within 42-34 with 9:17 left. But Backhaus reeled off a 19-yard scoring run 1:23 later, and that was that.

'I thought it'd be a close game,” said NFV lineman Seth Rupprecht. 'We needed a couple more stops. They just scored more points than we did. We ran out of time.”

Kuhens finished with 137 yards rushing, including a 55-yard touchdown. Halfback Jesse Mackey had 118 rushing, though 75 of that came on his very first carry, a TD on NFV's very first play from scrimmage.

'We should have had probably 42 points,” Lape said. 'When you do that, ultimately, you are going to win a lot of football games.”

Just not this one.

l Comments: (319) 398-8259; jeff.johnson@thegazette.com