North Fayette Valley keeps it simple in semifinal win

CEDAR FALLS — North Fayette Valley Coach Bob Lape wanted his Tigerhawks to control the ball and contain the Dyersville Beckman offense.

He had no idea the game plan would turn out the way it did against the Blazers, though.

No. 5 NFV advanced to the Class 2A state championship with a 42-13 victory in which his team ran 58 times for 411 yards and held Beckman to minus-5 yards in 24 carries.

'I'm proud of the way our kids came out and played and took care of that for us,' Lape said. 'We were hoping we would play that way. You just can't go into the game and hope they would do that (hold Beckman to negative yards).

'I'm proud of the way they played on defense. The kids just played hard on defense. It wasn't anything special. They worked hard in their preparation, and when you do that good things happen.'

The Tigerhawks had two rushers break the 100-yard barrier with Josh Mackey carrying 29 times for 198 yards and two touchdowns and Derrick Kuehner carrying 12 times for 100 yards and two scores of his own.

Lape's 'nothing special' assessment can apply to his offense, too, but that's nothing new. NFV only attempted five passes (Trevor Hurd was 2 of 3 for 42 yards and a touchdown, Kedrick Bemiss was 1 of 2 for 2 yards), and went under center every play — a departure from the norm, Lape said.

The coaching staff simplified the game plan just a little bit to adjust for the playing conditions, as this version of the NFV school district was in its first trip to the UNI-Dome. Lape and his staff wanted t

'We do have a series in the gun, but we just didn't need it tonight,' Lape said. 'We didn't want to tire ourselves out. We've done it all year except for this game, right on white boards and hold up numbers and look at the bands and away we go.

'We don't want to tire ourselves out. Maybe after this week we'll decide to go up tempo again and get after that again. … There's so much energy that goes in just walking through the tunnel. The adrenaline starts pumping and you get tired faster. We were trying to make sure we didn't overdo our kids too early.'

From the other side of the field, Beckman Coach Jim Derr saw the game play out how he wanted it to — just for the other team. The first-year Blazers coach wanted to control the clock with his offense, they just couldn't stay on the field.

Beckman only had one scoring drive, the first of the second half, getting a 24-yard TD pass from Connor Klostermann to Jake Grover. Grover had the other Blazers' TD as well on a 92-yard kickoff return.

His team wasn't fully healthy, he said, and that added to the struggles, too. As proud as he was of his team's run to the semis, they just couldn't stop the simple Tigerhawk attack when they needed to.

'They run up the middle, they run sweep. We knew we had to stop up the middle, we had to contain,' Derr said. 'We'd do that for two or three plays and then wouldn't do it the next play. That part we didn't get done.'

No frills, no games, and NFV is on to face Sioux Center in the title game on Friday at 2 p.m. At its base, the plan won't be too different.

Control the clock, keep the other offense on the field and maybe there's a championship waiting.

'That's part of the game plan as well,' Lape said. 'A good defense is a good offense. We want to get to the point where we get to the fourth quarter and just wear them out and grind them and tire people out. We don't expect to have big plays all the time.

'We just keep after it. We had to be patient.'

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