A high school football field. Photo: Rick Obst, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Clarion-Goldfield-Dows’ deepest playoff run in 15 years ended Friday night in Sioux Center, where No. 2 West Lyon beat the No. 6 Cowboys 42-14 in a Class 1A quarterfinal.
CGD finishes 9-2. The quarterfinal trip was the program’s first since 2011, RadioOnTheGo reported after the Cowboys scored 22 points in the fourth quarter to come back and beat No. 10 South Hardin 32-26 in the second round. It was their second win over South Hardin this fall.
The game wasn’t supposed to be in Sioux Center. West Lyon’s grass field near Inwood had taken about 20 inches of rain since Sept. 1, four of them in the week before the game, coach Jay Rozeboom told N’West Iowa REVIEW, so the Wildcats moved the game to Sioux Center’s turf. It was still a long bus ride for the Cowboys, and the Wildcats brought their crowd with them.
West Lyon scored first after stopping CGD on a fourth-and-short deep in Cowboys territory. Jacob Snyders ran it in from a yard out, River Kramer broke a long jet sweep for a touchdown, and Easton DeJong hit Chasyn Westra on a 35-yard pass for a 21-0 lead early in the second quarter.
CGD didn’t fold. Colin Sesker finished a 12-play drive with a 3-yard touchdown run, and Charlie Campbell went 39 yards for another score with 1:37 left in the half, his 10th rushing touchdown of the season. That made it 21-14 at halftime against a team that had beaten Tri-Center 56-7 and Hinton 35-0 in the first two rounds.
The second half went West Lyon’s way. DeJong scored on a 27-yard run, the Cowboys were stopped on another fourth-and-short near midfield, and Kramer added a 17-yard touchdown run to make it 35-14 after three quarters. DeJong scored again in the fourth. West Lyon ran for 347 of its 400 yards, with DeJong carrying 17 times for 143 yards and Kramer going for 132 on eight carries.
For a CGD offense that came into the night leading Class 1A with 3,118 rushing yards, according to RadioOnTheGo, the ground game still showed up. Campbell ran 13 times for 129 yards and JD Morrical ran 18 times for 113 yards while going 4 of 9 passing for 59, KQ Radio reported. Sesker added 52 yards on 21 carries. Senior Huxley Lingenfelter led the defense with 11 tackles, one for a loss, in his last game.
Coach Caleb Vogel had called the trip a major opportunity to take on the defending 1A champions. West Lyon moves on to the semifinals against No. 3 Aplington-Parkersburg at 1 p.m. Friday in the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls.
Curt Hanneman writes for Clarion News Online.