Iowa City West ‘on the right track’ with 34-28 win over Urbandale

IOWA CITY — Iowa City West found its defense when it needed it most.

A week after surrendering 56 points and 565 yards in a season-opening loss at Iowa City Liberty, the Trojans bowed up in the second half Friday night.

“I’m just happy for the boys,” West Coach Garrett Hartwig said after the Trojans got the best of Urbandale, 34-28, in a Class 5A high school football game at Trojan Field. “Football is such a strange sport. You work so hard and you never really know (what you have) until Week 1.

“I’ll credit the team we lost to, but I’ll also say we didn’t do a lot of things right. The biggest improvement a team will make is from Week 1 to Week 2. It was far from perfect tonight again, but we dug in when we needed to and got stops when we needed to. We’re on the right track, but there is a lot of season left. We have got to keep rolling.”

The first half gave every indication West (1-1) was not over its defensive struggles as the J-Hawks ran for 173 yards before halftime. That is when West switched things up on defense. The Trojans brought more defenders to the line of scrimmage, limited the Urbandale ground game to just 87 yards in the second half and held the J-Hawks scoreless for the final 14-plus minutes.

“A point of emphasis was being physical,” West junior linebacker/defensive end Julian Manson said. “Just winning on the line of scrimmage. That was it and everything just came after that.”

The West defense forced two turnovers, stuffed Urbandale twice on fourth down and blocked a field goal on the final play of the first half.

On the offensive side of the ball, Manson was a lethal deep threat from the wide receiver position. The son of former University of Iowa player Jason Manson, Julian Manson caught seven passes for 135 yards and touchdowns of 39, 21 and 50 yards.

“We just beat them with speed on the outside,” said Manson, who holds scholarship offers from Iowa, Kent State, Miami (Ohio), Minnesota and North Dakota State. “J-Dub (Jack Wallace), our quarterback, he just trusts us to throw the ball up to us.”

Wallace threw for 320 yards, the three touchdowns to Manson and ran for a fourth score. West senior Mason Woods collected 10 receptions for 100 yards.

“I feel like we were going pretty good in the first half and then we slowed down,” said Wallace, a Minnesota State Mankato commit. “And then we picked it back up. A lot to improve, but a lot to be happy about as well.”

Urbandale (0-2) led after three quarters, 28-24, but West scored the final 10 points of the contest. Punter Evan Anderson’s fourth-down pass to Declan Bunn kept the go-ahead drive alive, which was capped by Wallace’s 1-yard touchdown run with 9:11 to go.

West junior placekicker Adam Salem made his second field goal of the game a little over two minutes later for the night’s final points.

West visits Muscatine (1-1) next week.

“Keep being physical and win everything on the defensive side of the ball,” Manson said. “Offense will come.”

Iowa City West 34, Urbandale 28

AT TROJAN FIELD

URB ICW

First Downs 15 22

Rushes-yards 43-261 31-62

Comp-Att-Int 8-19-1 28-38-1

Passing yards 150 328

Total yards 411 390

Punts-avg. 2-24.5 2-41.0

Fumbles-lost 3-1 1-0

Penalties-yards 3-25 7-40

Urbandale 14 0 14 0—28

Iowa City West 10 7 7 10—34

ICW – Julian Manson 39 pass from Jack Wallace (Adam Salem kick)

URB – Landon Rinnan 2 run (Logan Sutter kick)

URB – Maxwell Hartzell 59 run (Logan Sutter kick)

ICW – FG Adam Salem 24

ICW – Julian Manson 21 pass from Jack Wallace (Adam Salem kick)

URB – Jaylon Brooks 12 run (Logan Sutter kick)

ICW – Julian Manson 50 pass from Jack Wallace (Adam Salem kick)

URB – Landon Rinnan 1 run (Logan Sutter kick)

ICW – Jack Wallace 1 run (Adam Salem kick)

ICW – FG Adam Salem 31

Individual Statistics

RUSHING – Urbandale: Jaylon Brooks 18-86, Maxwell Hartzell 3-61, Landon Rinnan 20-104, Elijah Hoyt 1-9, Josh Tarpeh 1-1. Iowa City West: Butali Butali 12-43, Campbell Janis 6-15, Jack Wallace 13-4.

PASSING – Urbandale: Landon Rinnan 8-19-1-150; Iowa City West: Jack Wallace 28-38-1-320, Evan Anderson 1-1-0-8.

RECEIVING – Urbandale: Hayden Moser 3-30, Turner Brown 2-50, Trey Dahlgren 2-63, Jaylon Brooks 1-7; Iowa City West: Chase Bopp 2-26, Julian Manson 7-135, Mason Woods 10-100, Nick Caylor 1-4, Butali Butali 3-13, Henry Elser 5-42, Declan Bunn 1-8.

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