Cedar Rapids Prairie conquers Kingston Stadium again, shuts out Jefferson, 28-0

CEDAR RAPIDS — Two weeks, two games at Kingston Stadium, and two wins. Nice little symmetry there for the Cedar Rapids Prairie football team.

'This is like our second home,' Prairie linebacker Gavin Dooley said, after his Class 4A 10th-ranked Hawks blanked Cedar Rapids Jefferson, 28-0, Thursday night. 'Last season, we won the district championship here. We came here last week and got Wash. Got a win here, a goose egg. I don't know what it is. It's just magic here.'

As Dooley mentioned, Prairie surprised many with a last-second, 21-20 win last week over Cedar Rapids Washington. It concluded its 2016 regular season by beating Cedar Rapids Kennedy at Kingston.

Now this. The Hawks actually do finally get a home game next week at John Wall Field against Clinton.

No, they don't want to move that to Kingston.

'Nice start to a season where we have so many question marks going into it,' said Prairie Coach Mark Bliss. 'We're slowing getting the pieces of the puzzle put together. We're still a work in progress, but we're slowly getting here. Hopefully we can continue to improve in as many ways as possible. All three phases.'

Junior running back Keegan Simmons rushed 26 times for 178 yards and a touchdown for Prairie, which, simply put, won this game up front on both sides of the ball. The Hawks and their single-wing offense accumulated 308 yards on the ground, their defense holding Jefferson (0-2) to 17.

Quarterback Dalton Rayner ran for a TD and threw for one, a 33-yarder to tight end Will Hamilton that concluded the scoring in the fourth quarter. He was wide, wide open over the middle off play action because Jefferson had to commit bodies to try and slow down the run.

'They are big up front,' said Jefferson Coach Brian Webb. 'What are you going to do? There is no scheme that fixes that. So credit to them. They've got the guys (up front) this year. We'd be doing the same thing if we had big guys like that across the board. And Simmons is a good football player, too.'

Prairie took a 7-0 lead on Rayner's option keeper up the middle early in the second quarter, then turned the game for good on Levi Usher's 60-yard run off a fake punt. On 4th-and-9, he rolled right and found nothing but open space, going untouched to the end zone for a 14-0 halftime lead.

Prairie opened the second half with a punishing 15-play (all runs), 59-yard drive that took 6:57 off the clock and was culminated by a 3-yard Simmons touchdown run. The 6-foot-2, 185-pounder carried it 11 times in the march for 62 yards, most of them coming by taking a direct shotgun snap from center and bulldozing up field.

'Coach kept giving me the ball, trusted me there,' Simmons said. 'That's all I can ask for.'

Jefferson reached Prairie territory three times in the first half but couldn't score. It never seriously threatened to reach the end zone in the second half at all.

Quarterback Noah Vawter completed 14 of 28 passes for 118 yards. The J-Hawks play next week at Linn-Mar.

'I thought we really shut down the inside run game,' Dooley said. 'They have that triple option there and can take it deep, and we just shut it down. The sweeps weren't there because we were out there. We were bumping correctly. Everything was just going perfectly.'

'I feel like we're just laying in the weeds,' Webb said. 'We've got a good football team, have some pieces there. No doubt. I think we can have a great district (season). That's what matters, district play.'

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