PELLA — Seven-yard rush, six-yard rush, seven-yard rush, 21-yard rush.
That’s how the third quarter began between North Polk and Pella (4-0) on Friday, Sept. 19, in Week 4 of Iowa high school football, and Dutch running back Emmanuel Diers accounted for all of those runs.
It’s a common exaggeration in football to say that a player is all over the field, but that proved to be a true statement with regard to Diers, who served as the catalyst for Pella’s offense and barely took water breaks before flipping over to the secondary on defense.
And he easily emerged as the player of the game in Pella's 19-15 victory over the previously undefeated Comets (3-1).
“We knew he had a heavy load today,” said Pella coach Ben Bollard. “But he’s a gritty kid. He’s got a high motor and a high capacity in that workload, so we felt good today. … We knew with the game on the line, let’s go down with one of our leaders, and so that was fun to see him out there and be successful.”
For Pella fans, the senior running back’s ability to control a game is nothing new. He rushed for more than 1,000 yards last season and collected a few hundred yards as a sophomore.
But against North Polk – the team that beat Pella in the 2024 Class 4A state championship game – the Dutch needed Diers to dig even deeper.
And that’s because Bollard’s squad was without another key piece of the offense.
Leading receiver Harrison Mullens – who collected 153 total yards and two touchdowns in the early part of the season – remained on the sidelines in street clothes for the highly anticipated rematch against the team that ended Pella’s season a year ago.
That put North Polk’s focus solely on Diers, as the breadwinner on the stat sheet, and the Comets could do little to slow him down.
Diers finished, unofficially, with 150 rushing yards, 92 receiving yards and two touchdowns – the only trips to the end zone for the Dutch in the game. He got the ball, either on the ground or through the air, 17 times in the first half and nearly double that in the second, finishing with 43 touches.
There were fewer than 20 plays that didn't involve Diers getting the ball.
Those offensive statistics don’t account for any of the impactful tackles he made – particularly during North Polk’s fourth-quarter possessions – that helped Pella walk away with a win.
So while the statistics will show that Diers put on another impressive performance, numbers don’t always show the full effort that went into those gains, an effort that went beyond just one player.
He’s quick to give credit to his offensive line – which faced down a hard-hitting front in the Comets’ defensive line – and Diers turned out to be one of the quieter contributors on a defense that had its sights set on making up for that title-game loss.
He was not responsible for any of the three interceptions that the Dutch walked away with; those went to Rex Rhamy, Blake DeHeus and Austin Schulte. Schulte's grab sealed the victory on the final play of the game.
Regardless of the team effort – and it was that, despite the lopsided stat sheet – Diers put all he had on the field on Friday.
And for the undefeated Dutch, that proved to be more than enough.
Alyssa Hertel is the college sports recruiting reporter for the Des Moines Register. Contact Alyssa at [email protected] or on Twitter @AlyssaHertel.