Prairie Football

Dellamuth, Smith are double-trouble for Prairie

Prairie Coach Mike Morrissey isn't sure where they keep the record book at his school, but he plans to find out.

He's got a few new entries to make.

Mitch Dellamuth and Kentrel Smith enjoyed an historic night for the Hawks on Thursday as they belted Washington, 44-6, in a Mississippi Valley Conference game at Kingston Stadium.

Dellamuth intercepted four passes, which is probably a school record, and scored touchdowns on offense and defense.

Here's the topper: Smith also scored on offense and defense, making for a highly unusual -- and highly enjoyable -- double-play for Prairie.

Dellamuth returned an interception 41 yards for a touchdown and caught a perfect 29-yard pass from Jace Hanna for another TD.

Not to be totally outdone, Smith hauled in a long pass from Hanna for a 95-yard score -- perhaps another school mark - and returned an interception 62 yards for a touchdown.

Morrissey had never seen two guys do that in a single game before: One touchdown on an interception return and another touchdown on a pass play. By two different guys.

"I guess I'm not surprised, now that I think about it," he said. "They are two good kids, and two kids that definitely earned their opportunity tonight."

Dellamuth and Smith are good receivers, but they're normally overshadowd at Prairie by Jarred Edmonds and Demetrius Harper. Not this time.

Dellamuth intercepted passes in the first quarter, second quarter, third quarter and fourth quarter. He was an equal opportunity thief, picking on Washington quarterback Mitch Blades in the first half and backup quarterback Reagan Wilson in the second half.

His touchdown reception happened in the third quarter.

"It feels special doing that for my team," Dellamuth said after his special night. "I'll remember it for a long time. I probably won't talk about it a lot. But yeah, I'll definitely remember it."

Dellamuth had intercepted only one pass all year before getting four picks in one game. "I tried to read the quarterback's eyes the best I could," he said.

Smith got Prairie out of a deep hole in the second quarter after a Washington punt had pinned the Hawks at their own 3-yard line. A running play got the ball to the 5, then Hanna lofted a long pass over a Washington defender's head and Smith did the rest, racing untouched to the end zone for six points and a 16-0 lead.

His 62-yard interception return for a touchdown came with 4:11 left in the game and made it 43-6 prior to the PAT.

Smith and Dellamuth exchanged smiles on the field after the game as they hung around for television, newspaper, radio and website interviews. Both players are juniors.

"We always push each other in practice," said Smith. "In games we're just out there having fun."

It was a fun night for Prairie, which raised its record to 5-3 (3-2 in the Valley Division) and clinched a spot in the Class 4A playoffs. The Hawks host Waterloo West next Friday and hope to sail into the playoffs for the first time since 2008 with a 6-3 mark.

"We really don't talk about the playoffs a lot," said Morrisey, in his second year as head coach. "I know there's a buzz a little bit. It's been awhile.

"These kids weren't even in high school at that time (in 2008). For them to come through this is pretty big. We spend a lot of time together, so this is a big one."

Hanna hit 12 of 24 passes for 235 yards and three touchdowns. He also connected with Edmonds for a 24-yard TD in the fourth quarter before calling it a night.

Mitch Christensen carried the ball 19 times for 80 yards and a touchdown for the Hawks.

Blades had a rough night for the Warriors (2-6, 0-5). He completed only 1 of 9 passes in the first half with two interceptions, then missed the second half with a bruised thigh. Wilson hit 6 of 10 passes for 87 yards, but was intercepted three times. Wilson connected with Jason Oney for a 23-yard touchdown pass in the third quarter.

Mitch Bredeson lugged the ball 36 times for 119 yards for Washington. "He has the heart of a lion," said Washington Coach Tony Lombardi.

The Warriors finish the regular season next Friday night against Dubuque Wahlert in Dubuque.

PRAIRIE 44, WASHINGTON 6

CRP        CRW
First Downs    19         13
Rushing        36-134     43-131
Passing        12-25-0    7-19-5
Passing Yards  235        105
Punts          3-36.7     4-36.8
Fumbles/Lost   1/1        2/1
Penalties      6-40       8-66

Prairie            10   7   13   14 - 44
Washington     0   0     6    0  -  6

SCORING PLAYS

P - FG Sam Drysdale 25
P - Mitch Dellamuth 41 interception return (Drysdale kick)
P - Kentrel Smith 95 pass from Jace Hanna (Drysdale kick)
P - Dellamuth 29 pass from Hanna (kick failed)
P - Mitch Christensen 1 run (Drysdale kick)
W - Jason Oney 23 pass from Reagan Wilson (run failed)
P - Jarred Edmonds 24 pass from Hanna (Drysdale kick)
P - Smith 62 interception return (Drysdale kick)

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING
PRAIRIE: Christensen 19-80, Hanna 8-38, Harper 7-17, Simpson 1-0, Beckman 1-(minus 1).
WASHINGTON: Bredeson 36-119, Blades 4-33, Wilson 3-(minus 21).

PASSING
PRAIRIE: Hanna 12-24-0, 235; Beckman 0-1-0, 0.
WASHINGTON: Blades 1-9-2, 18; Wilson 6-10-3, 87.

RECEIVING
PRAIRIE: Edmonds 4-46, Harper 4-21, Dellamuth 2-53, Smith 1-95, Simpson 1-33.
WASHINGTON: Oney 5-82, Dostal 1-18, Bjornsen 1-5.

Sophomore score - Washington 62, Prairie 0

Prairie lights up Linn-Mar on coach's birthday

The Prairie Hawks gave Coach Mike Morrissey a nice birthhday present Friday night with a misleading 49-27 shellacking of arch rival Linn-Mar on Homecoming for the Lions.

And the win came with a ribbon on top since it likely assures the resurgent Hawks (4-3, 2-2 MVC) a spot in the Class 4A football playoffs for the first time since 2008.

"That’s about as good of a birthday gift as I’ve had in a long time,” said Morrissey, who turned 30. “The guys were kidding me all week about getting old. This is as good as it gets.”

To celebrate the milestone, the players drenched  their coach with a post-game bucket of water on a chilly evening.

The game was nowhere near as close as the score indicated, since Prairie rolled up a 42-3 lead at halftime on four Jace Hanna TD passes.

The savvy senior quarterback came into the contest with 1,234 yards passing and 15 touchdowns, while completing 70 percent of his passes.  He was 12 for 18 for 224 yards Friday night.

For Linn-Mar (2-5, 2-3), which had won two of its last three after a miserable start, the loss dims their chance of a playoff berth with two games left.

“It sure doesn’t help,” said Coach Bob Forsyth. “The last three weeks I think we’re playing a little above our heads.

“We came out flat-footed tonight, especially on defense, and I’ll have to take the blame for that as a coach.  But I know these guys will be at their best the next two weeks. They’ll work hard.”

While Prairie has been relying on Hanna’s strong and accurate arm all season, for the first time the Hawks showed some firepower on the ground against a porous Linn-Mar defense.

Junior running back Mitch Christensen powered through the middle for 141 yards on the ground and scored two short touchdowns. He hadn’t gained more than 30 yards in a game all season.

"It was by far my best game,” Christensen said. “The line opened up big holes, and I just did my job by running through the holes.”

Morrissey said that getting a ground game going early gave his team confidence.

“The key was that we started off fast,” he said. “The offensive line was tremendous, and we got our first 100-yard rusher of the year.”

The defense was equally stout.

Prairie forced a punt on Linn-Mar’s first possession and then held the Lions to a 24-yard field after stopping them at the 6-yard line.

Morrissey said that set the tone for the rest of the half.

“That was huge for us,” he noted. “We’ve been stressing our tackling in practice. So that gave us some momentum."

Hawk senior linebacker Cam Rathje, who entered the game fourth the state in tackles with 70, said the defense wanted to make a statement right off the bat.

“We were just flying to the ball and making a lot of team tackles,” he said. “And once we showed we could stop the run, they didn’t have anything else.”

In addition, said Rathje, “We wanted to capitalize on their mistakes.”

And the Hawks certainly did that.

Hanna got the ball rolling on Prairie’s second possession when he hit star receiver Demetrius Harper on a short pass through the middle.  The senior speedster juked a couple of defenders, then simply out-sprinted the rest untouched into the end zone.

Following the field goal, Hanna hit lanky Jarred Edmonds from 9 yards to end the quarter.  The Hawks scored four touchdowns in the second quarter to put the game out of reach and set the clock in continuous motion for much of the second half.

Two Linn-Mar fumbles and a shanked 10-yard punt led directly to three scores, and the Lions were further dogged by costly penalties.

With the clock moving, Prairie scored its last touchdown with 3 minutes to go in the third quarter on a 39-yard interception return by Jesse Vizzini.

Trailing 49-3, the Lions made the score respectable with three touchdowns against Prairie’s subs.  One of the scores came after a successful onside kick, and two other onside kicks also came close to being recovered.

“The kids never gave up,” said Forsyth. “But give Prairie credit. They came ready to play. They played a good game and deserved to win.”

PRAIRIE 49, LINN-MAR 27

CRP   LM

First downs 15   14
Rushing 30-108  35-207
Passing  12-18-0  10-25-1  
Passing yards 224   89
Fumbles/lost 2/2   1/1
Penalties  1-15   9-80
Punts  2-44   5-24

Prairie  14 28 7 0 – 49
Linn-Mar 3 0 8 16 – 27

CRP – Demetrius Harper 80 pass from Jace Hanna (Sam Drysdale kick)
LM – FG Austin Wolter 24
CRP – Jarred Edmonds 9 pass from Hanna (Drysdale kick)
CRP – Mitch Christensen 1 run (Drysdale kick)
CRP – Christensen 1 run (Drysdale kick)
CRP – Edmonds 5 pass from Hanna (Drysdale kick)
CRP – Mitch Dellamuth 17 pass from Hanna (Drysdale kick)
CRP – Jesse Vizzini 39 pass interception (Drysdale kick)
LM – Ross Lembeck 18 pass from Rhys Davis (Lembeck run)
LM – Lembeck 19 run (Lembeck run)
LM – Davis 1 run (Lembeck run)

Harper gets big assist from Kenyon Murray's family

When they first met four years ago, Kenyon Murray was straight with Demetrius Harper right from the start.

Murray, the former Iowa basketball star, was coach of the Prairie freshman basketball team. Harper, in only his second year in the College Community school district after being expelled from McKinley Middle School with two weeks to go in the seventh grade, was trying out for the team.

“I knew who he was,” Murray says, “that he was supposed to be a pretty good athlete. He was kind of shy. But he kept looking down at his feet when he was talking to me.

“I said that showed disrespect and that he needed to look at people eye-to-eye.”

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Prairie foiled by Cedar Falls again, 41-30

A year later, but the script stayed the same.

Last season, the lowly Prairie Hawks were tied 21-21`with heavily favored Cedar Falls going into the fourth quarter but ended up losing 41-28.

It was deja vu all over again Friday night at John Wall Field as the undefeated and second-ranked Tigers put on a four-touchdown blitz in the final quarter for a come-from-way-behind 41-30 victory.

“Sometimes,” said a dejected second-year Prairie Coach Mike Morrissey, “when teams are used to winning just two or three games a year, they have to re-learn how to win.

“We seem to have a hard time finishing games.”

As it was last year, rifle-armed Hawk quarterback Jace Hanna almost single-handedly carried his team to the near upset. He tossed for 361 yards then and another 327 this time around.

In the first half alone Friday, the strong and savvy senior threw three touchdown passes and ran for another as Prairie built a 28-7 cushion. The Hawks totaled more than 300 yards in total offense at the midpoint.

“With it being homecoming, we really came out with fire,” said Hanna.

Indeed, their performance matched the traditional pre-game lighting of a giant letter “P’ in the end zone and an accompanying fireworks display.

After Cedar Falls (6-0, 4-0) jumped to a 7-0 lead, Hanna capped off a six-play drive with a sweet 26-yard scoring pass to Kentrel Smith.

He scored himself on a 2-yard sneak to start the second quarter, then four minutes later hit Jarred Edmonds for a 93-yard scoring bomb.

The Hawks (3-3, 1-2) snuffed a Tiger drive on 4th-and-9 at the 22 with three minutes left in the half and marched down the field to score again just before intermission on a short Hanna pass to Demetrius Harper.

“We went up on them so quickly, and we really had the momentum,” Morrissey said. “We put ourselves in a great position to win the game. Then we had a letdown in the second half.

“Maybe (we) played too conservative. I’ll take the blame for that.”

The momentum seemed to shift midway through the third quarter when the Tigers’ Nicholas deBuhr blocked Edmonds’ punt and ran for a score from 12 yards out.

Behind a huge offensive line and with a pair of bruising running backs, Cedar Falls began pounding the ball on the ground. “With those big guys up front, they just took control of the game,” Morrissey noted.

Nick Clark scored from 10 yards out at the start of the fourth quarter to bring the Tigers within a touchdown, 28-21.

Prairie gained a little breathing room (and its only points of the second half) when Tristan Beyer blocked a Cedar Falls punt and the ball bounced out of the end zone for a safety, making it 30-21.

But when things started going bad for Prairie, they went really bad.

First, running back Mitch Christensen fumbled at the 22-yard line and the Tigers’ Jake Buck bucked in from 13 soon after. Following a Prairie punt, Buck came right back with a 61-yard score to put Cedar Falls ahead 34-30.

Trying to bring his team back, Hanna was hit while attempting a pass and big Tiger defensive end Ike Boettger took the fumble 36 yards for another score with 4:34 left in the game.

“Those two fumbles were very costly,” said Morrissey. “But, you have to hand it to Cedar Falls. They have some very good players, and they made the big plays when they had to.”

For the second year in a row, Hanna saw a superb effort end in disappointment.

“It’s tough,” he said. “We  started out great, then kind of ran out of steam. We shut ‘em down, and we let it slip away.”

CEDAR FALLS 41, PRAIRIE 30

CF       CRP
First downs      15       17
Rushing          44-312   31-105
Passing          7-12-0   24-42-1
Passing yards    58       327
Fumbles/Lost     0/0      2/2
Penalties        5-30     7-35

Cedar Falls     7  0  7  27  – 41
Prairie            7 21  0   2  – 30

CF - Brayden Longnecker 1 run (Jacob Newton kick)
P – Kentrel Smith 26 pass from Jace Hanna (Sam Drysdale kick)
P – Hanna 2 run (Drysdale kick)
P – Jarred Edmonds 93 pass from Hanna (Drysdale kick)
P – Demetrius Harper 5 pass from Hanna (Drysdale kick)
CF – Nick deBuhr 12 blocked punt return (Newton kick)
CF – Nick Clark 10 run (Newton kick)
P – Safety
CF – Jake Buck 13 run (Newton kick)
CF – Buck 61 run (run failed)
CF – Boettger 36 fumble return (Newton kick)

INDIVIDUAL STATSTICS
Rushing
Cedar Falls - Jake Buck 21-186, Nick Clark 17-115, Brayden Longnecker 5-12.
Prairie - Mitch Christensen 14-60, Jace Hanna 8-26, Demetrius Harper 8-17.

Passing
Cedar Falls – Longnecker 7-12-0-58.
Prairie - Hanna 24-42-1-327.

Receiving
Cedar Falls – Ike Boettger 4-55.
Prairie - Jarred Edmonds 7-225, Harper 9-32, Kentrel Smith 3-59, Mitch Dellamuth 1-11.

Sophs - Cedar Falls 21, Prairie 14