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No. 9 Warriors slip past Bobcats

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE - Marshalltown High School senior fullback Patrick Landeros, top, is pulled down by Cedar Rapids Washington safety Watts McBride after running for a gain during the second quarter of Friday’s football game at Leonard Cole Field. Ninth-ranked Cedar Rapids Washington escaped with a soggy 6-0 victory.

The rain falling from the sky and the muddy field conditions stole Cedar Rapids Washington’s offensive identity, but the Class 4A No. 9 Warriors still slipped through Marshalltown’s grasp.

Cedar Rapids Washington’s vaunted passing attack was limited to just three completions, but one of them covered 23 yards on the first play of the second quarter and accounted for the game’s only points in the Warriors’ 6-0 triumph on Friday night at Leonard Cole Field.

Reid Ortiz hauled in a Henry Clymer pass and found a route to the end zone for a 23-yard touchdown, taking the Warriors to 3-0 for the first time since 2016.

Marshalltown (1-2) made enough of its own mistakes to ruin its shot at a stunning upset, and yet one nearly came to fruition. The Bobcats blocked Ortiz’s punt with 47.5 seconds remaining, but a pair of penalties backed the offense beyond its reach with the air attack crippled by the inclement conditions.

Brendan Bates completed a 4-yard pass to Carson Williams on the final play but he was tackled inbounds, and MHS was left to watch the clock run out on a one-score game on Senior Night.

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE - MHS senior tight end Carson Williams is tackled by a pair of Cedar Rapids Washington defenders in the second quarter.

“I tell you what, I told the kids you can’t control the conditions, the weather or the shape the field was in, but the first thing I told them at the end of the game was I was proud of their effort,” MHS head coach Adam Goodvin said. “I think they played hard. Things didn’t go our way, the ball didn’t bounce our way all night and we couldn’t catch a break, and that’s life.”

Marshalltown amassed 10 penalties for 79 yards and turned the ball over twice on fumbles, finishing with just 124 yards of total offense in the muck and the mud. Tailback Malik Haynes rushed for 50 yards, fullback Patrick Landeros had 38 yards and Bates finished 7-for-14 for 45 yards passing as the elements dictated the style of play.

Cedar Rapids Washington, which entered having averaged 211.5 passing yards per game, had just 34 of those — but one of Clymer’s three completions was the one that won the contest.

The Warriors capped an eight-play, 49-yard drive with the Ortiz touchdown coming on third-and-8 from. Sergio Zaragoza got through to block the extra-point kick, but enough damage had been done.

The Bobcats countered with their best drive of the night, getting three of their five first downs during a nine-play, 43-yard drive that chewed up more than 4 minutes of clock as well as the crown of the field. Two penalties plagued the possession that ended on an incomplete pass on fourth-and-8.

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

That’s as deep as Marshalltown got into Washington territory until the final series of the game, when the Warriors went three-and-out near midfield. The Bobcats spent all three timeouts preserving clock before Ortiz’s punt was rejected at the line of scrimmage. Jaiden Buchanan fell on the loose ball with 47.5 seconds left, but Marshalltown’s potential game-winning drive was hindered by penalties.

“I thought at first when I saw a block we were going to scoop-and-score but we just dove on it, it’s the natural instinct,” said Williams. “I thought we were going to have a big upset and really take them down, and we did keep them down. I thought our defense played great and our offense played great at times, but then you go back to the penalties and we really shot ourselves in the foot. That’s what happened our first game as well against Mason City and that shuts us out of a game.”

The Bobcat offense was limited to 29 carries for 79 yards rushing and 45 yards through the air. Washington outgained MHS 140-124 overall, but had one more big play than the Bobcats did.

“We were put in some tough situations, the whole game was tough and there was nothing easy,” Goodvin said. “They’re a good football team and they’re ranked in the top-10 in the state and we were both playing in the same field conditions. They got one play that worked and we didn’t.”

Washington leaned on junior tailback Jabari Dobbs, giving him the ball 31 times for 80 yards. He entered the game with 37 carries for 156 yards, but served as the bell cow for a team that couldn’t throw it the way it wanted to.

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

“They are a team that loves to pass the ball and they were forced to put it on the ground and it took them out of their game, but we just couldn’t get anything going for us,” Goodvin said. “Our guys kept fighting, it was a smash-mouth football game I’ll tell you that right now, and what it comes down to is one play.

“We’ve got to get better, it’s our only option right now.”

The Bobcats, who were originally scheduled to host rival Ames before that school’s extracurricular activities were stifled by the Iowa Department of Education regarding remote learning, will go off-script again next Friday night for the second week in a row. Instead of hosting Des Moines East, Marshalltown will entertain Fort Dodge.

“We definitely have made some progress from our first week, which is good to see, and I think at this point we just need to let [the loss to Washington] go and get Fort Dodge next week because that’s going to be another big game,” Williams said.

Cedar Rapids Washington 6, Marshalltown 0

T-R PHOTO BY ROSS THEDE

At Marshalltown

CRW 0 6 0 0 — 6

MHS 0 0 0 0 — 0

Scoring Summary

First Quarter

No scoring.

Second Quarter

CRW — Reid Ortiz 23 pass from Henry Clymer (kick blocked), 11:51.

Third Quarter

No scoring.

Fourth Quarter

No scoring.

TEAM STATISTICS

CRW MHS

First downs 10 5

Rushes-yards 51-108 29-79

Passing yards 34 45

Comp-Att-Int 3-5-0 7-14-0

Total offense 56-140 43-124

Fumbles-lost 4-2 4-2

Penalties-yards 5-44 10-79

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING — CRW: Jabari Dobbs 31-80, Clymer 15-44, Zaren Ross-Carr 1-0, TEAM 3-(minus-12); MHS: Malik Haynes 12-50, Patrick Landeros 12-38, Malachi Holmes 1-3, Nick Rebik 1-0, TEAM 4-(minus-18).

PASSING — CRW: Clymer 3-5-34-0; MHS: Brendan Bates 7-14-45-0.

RECEIVING — CRW: Ortiz 1-23, Justin Scherrman 2-11; MHS: Carson Williams 6-35, Gannon Williams 1-10.

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