Big plays allow West Delaware to rally past Webster City (w/video)

CEDAR FALLS - The hare beat the tortoise this time.

Quarterback Trey MacTaggart and tailback Sam Lahr doubled as Supermen (or track men) on this Halloween night and led the seventh-ranked West Delaware Hawks to a 39-28 comeback win over No. 4 Webster City in a Class 3A state playoff second-rounder at the UNI-Dome.

West Delaware (10-1), which plays at Decorah (9-2) in a Monday night quarterfinal, had one huge offensive running play after another to rally from a 14-3 halftime hole. The Hawks had 16 second-half plays, all runs by MacTaggart or Lahr, for 300 yards, an 18.8 per-play clip.

Counter that with Webster City (9-2) and a little-at-a-time single-wing offense that piled up 25 first downs and an 80-34 plays edge. In the end, that didn't matter.

Victory to the hare.

“When we got to the locker room at halftime, our linemen talked to the coaches about what we had open,” said MacTaggart, who rushed nine times for 157 yards and three touchdowns. “We've got some smart guys up there, and our coaches believe in them. They told us what we had, they went out there and gave us big holes to rush through. Everything just started clicking.”

MacTaggart's 67-yard TD run up the middle on a shotgun option-read play was followed by a 45-yard MacTaggart scoring run off the same play, as West Delaware took a stunning 18-14 lead less than four minutes into the second half. Lahr ran in for two points after MacTaggart's first touchdown.

WD's defense then stopped Keagan Parks, 3A's leading rusher, short on a 4th-and-1 play at the Hawks 39, leading to an eventual 19-yard Lahr touchdown run that gave West Delaware an important two-score edge of 25-14.

The teams went back and forth offensively from there, with Lahr scoring on a 74-yard run down the sideline early in the fourth and MacTaggart adding a 6-yard TD with 1:29 left that sealed it. Spinback Jon Davis had three TD runs and a TD pass for Webster City.

“It almost felt like we were (unstoppable) there at the end,” said Lahr, who finished with 205 yards rushing on 18 carries. “The line was just opening up some huge holes for me and Trey.”

“We decided at halftime, we knew when we gave them our unbalanced set, we could run right at them,” said West Delaware Coach Doug Winkowitsch. “And as soon as we got that going, we felt like we could get Trey on the counter. We got it twice there, and that was big.”

Here is the game boxscore and short video interview with MacTaggart, who says he is being recruited as a possible wide receiver by Iowa State.

TEAM STATISTICS

W. Delaware

Webster City

First downs

12

25

Rushes-yards

28 - 360

64 - 248

Passing yards

26

126

Comp-Att-Int

2 - 6 - 0

10 - 16 - 0

Total yards

386

374

Fumbles-lost

1 - 0

0 - 0

Punts-average

2 - 36.5

2 - 33.5

Penalties-yards

3 - 43

4 - 25

Rushing:

 W. Delaware –

Sam Lahr 18-205 ,

Trey MacTaggart 9-157 ,

Team 1--2

 Webster City –

Keagan Parks 30-116 ,

Jon Davis 24-81 ,

Sam Mossman 9-50 ,

Connor Larson 1-1

Passing:

 W. Delaware –

Trey MacTaggart 2-6-0-26

 Webster City –

Jon Davis 10-16-0-126

Receiving:

 W. Delaware –

Jacyn Goebel 2-26

 Webster City –

Sam Mossman 6-74 ,

Caleb Crouthamel 2-40 ,

Boone Myers 1-12 ,

Keagan Parks 1-0

W. Delaware

3

22

14

–

39

Webster City

7

7

14

–

28

WC-Sam Mossman 5 pass from Jon Davis (Kirk Greenley kick)

WC-Davis 4 run (Greenley kick)

WDel-Michael Bohlke 32 FG

WDel-Trey MacTaggart 67 run (Sam Lahr run)

WDel-MacTaggart 45 run (Bohlke kick)

WDel-Lahr 19 run (Bohlke kick)

WC-Davis 1 run (Greenley kick)

WDel-Lahr 74 run (Bohlke kick)

WC-Davis 1 run (Greenley kick)

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WDel-MacTaggart 6 run (Bohlke kick)