The boys played very well in all three phases of the game on Saturday. Our defense threw a shutout, offense was very efficient and our special teams even got a score.
The game started out on Friday night. We received the kick and had a 30 yard return. After that the lightning and storm came and we ended up calling it for the night. After the delay we made the decision to come back on Saturday and finish the game. When we came back Saturday the field was in good shape and our kids were too. We took our opening possession 53 yards and scored on a pass play from Rossiter to Robison. The two point conversion was good from Rossiter to Rossiter and we were underway.
Iowa Valley's first drive amounted to them getting a couple first downs and they were moving the ball pretty decent but senior Zach Davis stepped up and made a play for us by intercepting a pass at our own 10 yard line. After the change of possession and a couple of run plays and a penalty later we threw the ball deep to Zach Davis for a 90 yard Touchdown pass from Rossiter. The conversion failed but we were in business. The offensive line did an incredible job of protecting the quarterback and paving the way in the run game. Max Huston, Matthew Niebuhr, Sam Jennings, Warren Krieger-Coble, and Jordan Hudson played very well up front. They were physical and imposed their will on a defense that schematically was a little different than what we expected to see. WMU was lead in rushing by Darren Hunter who had 84 yards and 2 TDs. His TD's were runs of 36 and 24 yards. Kolt Rossiter had two big runs and finished with 54 yards. Bryce Robison ran the ball as well and had a long TD run of 55 yards and finished with 66 on the ground. Sophomore Kaleb Hagge came in late and ran the ball four times for 16 yards. We were efficient and only had two run plays for negative yards. In the passing game we had a nice game as well. Rossiter was able to get the ball out on time and in the correct spots as he went 6-7 for 181 yards and 3 TDs. Zach Davis, Robison, and Garret Baker each had a TD. Davis paced the Wolves with 105 yards receiving on 2 catches.
Defensively the Wolves were lead by Jennings with 14 solo tackles. That happens because we played fundamentally and very well as a team. The defensive line played well and funneled plays to our linebackers. Krieger-Coble, Gerling, Hudson, Kyle Giese, and Huston played very well for us to allow Niebuhr and Jennings to make some plays. Huston recovered a fumble that Niebuhr forced. Davis had the two picks on the back end.
On the special teams side we returned a punt 70 yards. Bryce Robison returned it but there were some huge blocks by the return team to help spring it. It has been a long time since we have a special team touchdown in the program. Jennings started his punting all over again this year. He only punted one time but it was a 42 yard punt. Rossiter was the Kickoff Specialist for us and had just short of 400 yards in kicking as well. He had plenty of opportunities as we scored 7 touchdowns.
As you can tell we had a lot of great things happen on Saturday. The boys did a great job of executing and playing well as a team. We tried to get as many guys in as possible but like everything and everyone the coaching staff isn't perfect.
This week we play Wapello in our home opener. We hope to see everyone out at the game or supporting us and listening on The Wolvecast. This week is going to be warm so we need to push fluids all week so that we can stay cramp free on Friday. We've been watching film all day and are starting to compile a game plan. I think that we'll be able to do what we did up at Iowa Valley schematically. We need to have a good week of practice as we only had one off day instead of two so we will be a more diligent of our beginning of the week process. Thanks for reading and I'll have a mid week report to let you know how the game prep is going.
For those before us, those of us now, and those that follow, WE ARE WMU!