Prep football notes: broken ankle ends Wantock's season

MARION -- The top-seeded Linn-Mar Lions will enter the Class 4A football playoffs without their leading rusher.

Coach Bob Forsyth confirmed Saturday morning that Mitch Wantock suffered a broken right ankle in the third quarter of the Lions' 28-7 win over Cedar Rapids Xavier on Friday at Saints Field.

"It kills you when this happens to a kid, but it happened and you can't change it," said Forsyth, who added that Wantock underwent surgery Saturday morning.

Wantock rushed for 116 yards before the injury, sending his season total to 1,106. He also is in the Lions' rotation at inside linebacker.

Brandon Ophoff is the backup tailback, and probably will start Wednesday when the Lions (9-0) host Clinton (3-6) in a first-round playoff game. Kickoff is 7 p.m. at Linn-Mar Stadium.

"It's just the next man in," Forsyth said. "Mitch is a very productive player and we'll miss him, but this will only affect us as much as we let it."

Red-zone ramblings

- Iowa City West jumped from an eighth seed to a sixth seed in 4A with its 21-10 upset of second-ranked Cedar Falls. Quarterback Charles Rogers accounted for 303 total yards and two touchdowns, as West (7-2) shook off a 66-37 loss the previous week to Cedar Rapids Washington to earn the Mississippi Valley Conference's Valley Division championship. It was West's first MVC title since 2003.

- Waterloo East's 38-21 victory over Dubuque Senior clinched the school's first winning regular season since 1999. East finished 5-4.

- Tipton made sure it wouldn't have a winless season by smoking Columbus Junction, 54-16. Both teams came into the game 0-8.

- Fifth-ranked Mason City Newman got three touchdowns from Casey Hall to upend third-ranked Postville, 42-7. The game was a Class A non-district affair, and Postville was playing without top back Dallas Imoehl, who was injured.

- Fremont-Mills running back Nate Meier rushed for an astounding 500 yards and nine touchdowns in his team's 80-49 win over East Mills. That's an Eight-Man state record, surpassing the previous mark of 492 by Andrew Leeper of Adair-Casey. Meier also intercepted two passes for Fremont-Mills, which is ranked third.

- How much better from top to bottom was this side of the state in Class 4A this season? Well, the proof is in the pudding, as they say. Seven teams with under-.500 records are in the 4A playoff  field from Central and Western Iowa. In Eastern Iowa, that number is just two (Davenport Central at 4-5 and Clinton at 3-6).