Cold doesn’t faze hot Coe

CEDAR RAPIDS - The snow held off, but it wouldn't have mattered if it had dumped in droves Saturday at frigid Clark Field.

Coe was that hot.

The Kohawks (5-5, 4-3) rolled up 595 yards of total offense and scored 33 unanswered points to rout Buena Vista, 33-13, in their Iowa Conference season finale.

Coe junior quarterback Josh Rekers passed for a career-high 382 yards, completing 24 of 31 passes. Senior receiver Nick Lenstra caught a career-best three touchdown passes. Sophomore place-kicker Brandon Abbas tied a single-game school record with four field goals and set the single-game mark for points by a kicker with 15. Kohawk junior Colton Storla ran for 111 yards.

The Coe defense also played lights out, holding Buena Vista to 286 total yards. The Beavers (5-5, 4-3) got 114 of those yards in the fourth quarter, after the game was well out of reach.

Buena Vista averaged 459.4 yards on offense in its first nine games, second in the Iowa Conference. The Beavers also boasted the league's top rusher, Dylan Barrett, and top passer, Bobby Brown.

Coe Coach Steve Staker said his game plan was to keep the ball away from the Beavers. That was why on Coe's first possession he decided to gamble on fourth-and-1 from the Kohawk 40 less than 2 minutes into the game.

A fumble on the play was recovered by Buena Vista and the Beavers moved 43 yards for a touchdown. The PAT kick was blocked.

'We made the first down, but then we fumbled,” Staker said. 'I thought, ‘This is not going to be fun.'”

It turned into a blast. Coe scored on four of its next five possessions, including field goals of 26, 20 and 38 yards by Abbas to take a 16-6 lead at halftime.

Rekers threw a 31-yard touchdown pass to Lenstra on the first play of the second quarter to put Coe ahead to stay, 10-6. Lenstra also caught scoring passes of 12 and 15 yards in the second half.

'It was the best I've played,” said Lenstra, who had seven receptions for 117 yards.

'We knew (BV's) defense had struggled and the offense was their focal point,” Rekers said. 'We knew we were going to be able to put some points on the board and our defense played a hell of a game.”

It was a satisfying ending to a disappointing campaign for the Kohawks.

'It was a quarter or so every game that we were kind of off, and then things just snowballed,” Rekers said. 'It wasn't the season we wanted, but this was a good ending.”