The Cougars saw an opportunity, and they went in for the kill.

Cedar Rapids Kennedy forced four turnovers and recovered an onside kick in a 49-0 triumph over the Marshalltown High School football team on Friday night at Leonard Cole Field.

Kennedy (3-2) scored four times in the second quarter alone, turning each of its possessions into seven points while grinding Marshalltown’s ground-and-pound flexbone offense into a pulp.

Class 5A’s second-leading rushing team coming in, Marshalltown (3-2) was held to just 86 yards rushing and 88 yards of total offense in suffering its worst loss since a 69-0 setback against West Des Moines Valley in the regular-season finale on Oct. 20, 2017.

“I don’t think the scoreboard really reflected the way the game went, I think we all know that shouldn’t have been the final score,” said MHS head coach Adam Goodvin. “I think we’ll leave it at that.

“I mean, we were doing some good things there in the first quarter, but we turned the ball over and we’ve got to learn from that. At the same time, we’ve just got to be better in everything we do.”

Cedar Rapids Kennedy chewed up the first half of the first quarter, capping an 11-play, 68-yard drive with a 2-yard pass from William Woodring to Deacon Kucera on third-and-goal.

The Bobcats seemed destined to answer right back, but the first of four turnovers ended that. Marshalltown marched 59 yards on eight plays on their ensuing possession, but Jamison Niehouse’s pass intended for Drake Gersema in the end zone was picked off by Jett Ousley.

The Cougars didn’t take as long to reach paydirt again, going 80 yards in six plays, wasting just 2:55 of clock before Lawson Neighbor caught a Woodring pass on third-and-6 and took it 48 yards for the score.

Marshalltown’s biggest breath of momentum came next, but it was snuffed out by a penalty. Aiden Smitherman took the reverse handoff from Tyler Englund on the ensuing kickoff and raced 90 yards to paydirt, only to have the play nullified by a flag for holding.

The Bobcats went three-and-out, and Kennedy made it hurt.

Brayden Peck pulled down a 40-yard touchdown pass four plays later, and the Cougars went for the throat with an onside kick moments later. The recovery led to another Kennedy touchdown as Jackson Goslin carried the ball 39 and 6 yards to the end zone to make it 28-0 with 6:56 still remaining in the first half.

Marshalltown put together a steady drive that ended with another interception, and Kennedy made it 35-0 on a 9-yard run by tailback Damarian Orr with 55 seconds left before halftime.

“They’ve got size and they keep things simple and they’re physical,” Goodvin said. “That was kind of the gist of the evening. Their guys aren’t getting touched for 7-8-9 yards downfield at times and that makes it really hard to stop them.”

Orr finished with 13 carries for 129 yards and the Cougars racked up 291 rushing yards after entering the game with just 476 through the first four games of the season. Woodring went 10-for-11 passing for 144 yards and three touchdowns, and Kennedy got touchdowns from seven different players in the win.

Marshalltown’s rushing attack, which had 1,182 yards coming into the game, got just 86 more in Friday’s disheartening defeat. Tyler Englund, the state’s fourth-leading rusher, was held to just 36 yards on 13 carries.

The Bobcats totaled 88 yards of offense, earning just six first downs.

“I think we’ve got some kids that are upset about this,” Goodvin said. “This is an emotional game. You’ve got to play with emotion, but you need to be able to handle that in a mature way, showing some resilience when things go bad and flushing it and moving on and trying to win each play.

“I think we’re growing a little bit on the mental side of the game, and I’m excited to continue to wwatch these kids grow in that aspect. I think we’ve got a lot to clean up and we’ve got to be more consistent in how we go about our day-to-day business and make sure we’re at 100 percent.”

Niehouse finished with 32 yards rushing on 11 carries, while Gaston Feras added three rushes for 12 yards.

John Schoenfelder recovered a fumble for the Bobcat defense, which surrendered 49 points for the first time since a 50-7 loss in the regular-season finale at Urbandale on Oct. 23, 2020.

Marshalltown goes on the road next Friday night, visiting Waukee on Friday, Oct. 3, for a 7 p.m. kickoff inside Waukee Stadium.

Cedar Rapids Kennedy 49, Marshalltown 0

Score by Quarters

CRK 7 28 7 7 — 49

MHS 0 0 0 0 — 0

Scoring Summary

First Quarter

CRK — Deacon Kucera 2 pass from William Woodring (Andrew Richey kick), 6:26.

Second Quarter

CRK — Lawson Neighbor 48 pass from Woodring (Richey kick), 11:44.

CRK — Brayden Peck 40 pass from Woodring (Richey kick), 7:35.

CRK — Jackson Goslin 6 run (Richey kick), 6:56.

CRK — Damarian Orr 9 run (Richey kick), :55.

Third Quarter

CRK — Louis Smith 5 run (Richey kick), 5:36.

Fourth Quarter

CRK — Jonathan Biever 4 run (Richey kick), 4:05.

TEAM STATISTICS

CRK MHS

First downs 18 6

Rushes-yards 32-291 28-86

Passing yards 144 2

Comp-Att-Int 10-12-0 1-6-2

Total offense 44-435 34-88

Fumbles-lost 2-1 2-2

Penalties-yards 7-65 5-47

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING — CRK: Orr 13-129, Smith 6-70, Goslin 2-45, Carter Poppe 2-21, Biever 3-16, Griffin Mann 2-7, Woodring 2-6, Kingston Johnson 1-(minus-1), Jack Hayes 1-(minus-2); MHS: Tyler Englund 13-36, Jamison Niehouse 11-32, Gaston Feras 3-12, Drake Gersema 1-6.

PASSING — CRK: Woodring 10-11-144-0, Poppe 0-1-0-0; MHS: Niehouse 1-6-2-2.

RECEIVING — CRK: Neighbor 4-70, Peck 1-40, Thierry Boyd 2-26, Atley Gloede 2-6; MHS: Kyle Smith 1-2.