Week 4 Roundup: Xavier rolls over DeWitt Central

You might say Cedar Rapids Xavier gave its fans many happy returns in its first high school football meeting with DeWitt Central last night.

The Saints had three kick returns of 70 or more yards in the first half and executed just about everything right offensively in the first two quarters while rolling to a convincing, 59-3, rout of the Sabers at Birney Field.

Sean Murphy set the tone when he ran back the opening kickoff 96 yards for a score and he added an 89-yard kickoff return for a touchdown in the second quarter. Camden Stovie contributed a 70-yard punt return to set up his own 32-yard field goal just before halftime.

That gave the Saints (3-1, 2-0 in Class 3A district play) a 45-3 halftime cushion and the entire second half was played with a running clock.

'You always want to start off as well as you can,' Murphy said of his game-opening return. 'The blockers all did their jobs. I couldn't have had a better set-up.'

Special teams wasn't the only area in which Xavier dominated. The Saints strung together six first downs en route to their second touchdown, used a 49-yard run by quarterback Bryce Schulte to set up the third TD and after recovering a DeWitt fumble at the 21-yard line, they reached into their bag of tricks to have Blake Whitten flip a scoring pass to a wide-open Schulte.

Schulte finished with 72 yards rushing, 69 passing on just four attempts, 21 receiving and scored three times. He didn't play in the second half.

Central DeWitt Coach Mike Miller said his team came into the game with numerous injuries and things only got worse. He lost a starting linebacker last week in a loss to Dubuque Wahlert and his replacement was injured on Murphy's game-opening return.

'Being shorthanded really made it tough against a team like that,' Miller said. 'I still thought there were a few times when we had things going.'

DeWitt (2-2, 0-2) did not get a first down until the middle of the second quarter but it managed to break the shutout on a 32-yard field goal by Keegan Lass with 3:35 to go in the half.

Murphy's 89-yard dash followed seconds later.

'We're just going to move forward,' Miller said. 'We've got a couple of big games coming up. We just have to flush this one.'

— Don Doxsie, Quad-City Time

DECORAH 13, WESTERN DUBUQUE 7

— Jacob Leeps 1-yard run with 58 seconds left lifted the Vikings to a win in Epworth.

The Bobcats marched down to the Decorah 47, but turned the ball over on downs with nine seconds left.

Drake Schuring had a 9-yard touchdown run in the second quarter for Decorah and Nolan Baumhover scored Western Dubuque's only TD on a 30-yard run in the third.

— Darin Svenson, correspondent

ANAMOSA 41, NORTHEAST 7

— Trevor Wehling rushed for 214 yards and three touchdowns as the Raiders won for the third straight week.

This is the first three-game winning streak at Anamosa since the 2004 season.

Wehling scored on runs of 70, 25 and 3 yards for the Anamosa (3-1), which totaled 524 yards on the ground.

Quarterback Kolin Schulte completed just 3 of 4 passes, but two were from touchdowns — to Dirk Snyder and Tyler Zumbach.

— Daryl Schepanski, correspondent

WEST DELAWARE 48, VINTON-SHELLSBURG 7

— Brent Lammers became the Hawks' all-time total offense leader and Coy Roussell rushed for 210 yards and three TDs in a rout in Manchester.

Lammers set the school record on a 72-yard touchdown and finished the night with 190 rushing yards and two TDs. He also passed for 117 yards, completing 7 of 13 passes, including a 7-yard TD pass to John Nagel and now has more than 4,300 career yards.

Roussell scored on runs of 54, 38 and 48 yards and backup quarterback Max Ridenour added a 38-yard TD runs as the Hawks rolled up a school-record 580 yards of offense.

— Bill Logan, correspondent

MONTICELLO 15, WEST LIBERTY 6

— Adam Turnis picked off two Comet passes, returning one 88 yards for a touchdown as the Panthers won on the road.

Peyton Paddock kicked two field goals for Monticello, covering 31 and 40 yards.

A 32-yard pass from Cooper Koenig to Joe Baker in the fourth was West Liberty's only score.

— Pete Temple, correspondent

BELLEVUE 50, ALBURNETT 6

— Keenan Ploessl threw for two touchdowns and ran for two more for host Bellevue (4-0). Ploessl had touchdown passes to Tyler Banowetz of 32 and 45 yards.

Noah Reed had a 72-yard touchdown run for Bellevue.

Dillon Caves had a 7-yard touchdown pass to Jordan Stewart for Alburnett (1-3).

SOUTH WINNESHIEK 18, NEW HAMPTON 7

— Class 1A No. 3 South Winneshiek combined its big-play offense by limiting the big plays on defense to spoil Class 2A top-ranked New Hampton's homecoming.

South Winneshiek's Jordan Rommes hauled in a 36-yard jumpball pass in the end zone to put the Warriors up 12-7 with 21 seconds left before halftime, while running back Ryan Hageman juked a pair of defenders and raced 43 yards on a pitch play for the only score of the second half.

Hageman rushed for 132 yards to lead the Warrior attack. New Hampton was paced by Connor Frerichs' 73 yards rushing.

— Waterloo Courier

NORTH-LINN 22, POSTVILLE 15

— After the Pirates scored with 1:11 on the clock for a 15-14 lead, Jacob Rawson ran the ensuing kickoff back 80 yards for a touchdown and finished off the comeback by scoring the two-point conversion.

Brandon Stepanek's interception sealed the victory with 44 seconds remaining. Rawson led the Lynx (2-2, 2-0 Class A District 5) with 163 yards and 33 carries.

CASCADE 42, TIPTON 21

— Derek Lieurance scored four touchdowns as the Cougars won at Tipton.

Lieurance completed 13 of 14 passes for 252 yards and two touchdowns and ran for another two touchdowns. Nate Bergfeld caught seven passes for 153 yards and two touchdowns.

MAQUOKETA VALLEY 49, EDGEWOOD COLESBURG 12 --

HEMPSTEAD 17, SENIOR 6 --