Ryan Murken
Your Prep Sports
WEST BRANCH – Postseason football is about one thing – moving on.
Call it survive and advance season.
West Branch had its survival skills put to the test on Friday but the Bears are moving on.
Keaton Gates scored the go-ahead touchdown with less than a minute to play and Cooper Gates came up with a game-clinching sack on the game’s final play as Class 2A seventh-ranked West Branch fended off Denver 22-15 in a Class 2A opening round thriller at the Little Rose Bowl in West Branch.
“We are still playing, it’s awesome,” first-year West Branch coach Matt Hughes said. “We are still playing. We found a way, we’ve done that all year. I’m proud of our guys.”
Denver (4-5) dominated time of possession, ran 74 offensive plays to 36 for West Branch and held a 326-212 edge in total yards.
West Branch (7-2) still found a way to win.
“That is a good football team over there, they were ready to play,” Hughes said. “We got a little dose of our own medicine tonight. They came and had a great game plan for us. We were a little lethargic but this team never gives up, they keep coming and when it was time for them to perform, they performed.”
Brandon Pedersen returned a punt 80 yards for a touchdown in the first half and came up with a 33-yard touchdown grab on the game-winning fourth-quarter drive for West Branch.
The Bears will host a second-round playoff game next Friday.
Postseason pairings will be released on Saturday morning at 10 a.m.
“It just matters that we are staying together as a team and doing whatever it takes to win,” Pedersen said. “We are just keeping this show on the road.”
The 33-yard grab by Pedersen set up the game-winning touchdown run by Gates.
Pedersen outjumped a Denver defender for a jump ball around the 15 yard line and was finally hauled down at the seven.
“I kept going and I just stopped until I saw the ball connect to my hands,” Pedersen said. “It was go time from there.”
Two plays later Keaton Gates broke several tackles on a 10-yard touchdown run that gave the Bears a 22-15 lead with :56.8 left.
“We knew we had to score and we came together and we got it done,” Gates said. “We stuck together.”
West Branch had to survive one final Denver drive.
Back-to-back passes from Joerger to Brayton Hovey and Lincoln Roethler set Denver up with a first down at the Bear 14 yard line with 5.6 seconds remaining.
After a timeout Joerger had a pass sail just high of Roethler on the endzone.
On the game’s final play Cooper Gates got a hand on a scrambling Roethler for a sack to secure the win.
“It wasn’t really a full tackle I just got him by a shoelace,” Gates said. “A tackle is a tackle just like a win is a win.”
Things couldn’t have started much better for West Branch.
After forcing a Denver punt on the game’s opening possession Pedersen picked up a rolling football at the 20 yard line, made a defender miss and raced 80 yards down the sideline to put the Bears up 7-0 less than four minutes into the game.
“I saw the ball rolling and the kid coming at me and I knew I had to hit one move and I was going,” Pedersen said. “I knew no one was catching me after that.”
Denver responded with an 11-play, 80-yard touchdown drive capped by a 12-yard touchdown run by junior quarterback Jackson Joerger.
A two-point conversion run gave the Cyclones an 8-7 lead.
Denver took a 15-7 lead when Joerger capped a 22-play, 91-yard march that spanned 10:08 of game time with a 5-yard touchdown run with 3:30 left in the opening half.
“They were killing us with the option, we haven’t seen the option all year and their quarterback was keeping and we didn’t have anybody on the quarterback and it was hurting us most of the first half,” Hughes said. “We made some adjustments at halftime and came out the second half and played a lot better defensively.”
West Branch got a spark before the half with a 9-play, 65-yard touchdown drive.
Senior quarterback Brennen Drive scored on a 1-yard sneak on fourth-and-goal with 12 seconds left in the opening half and tied the game with a two-point conversion run.
The game stayed tied until the final minute when the Bears came up with the big plays it needed to move on.
“It was ugly but we got it done,” Keaton Gates said. “That’s all that matters.”
WB DEN
First downs 9 22
Rushes-yards 21-106 60-216
Comp-Att-Int 8-15-0 5-14-0
Passing yards 106 110
Total yards 212 326
Punts-Avg. 5-36.2 3-33
Fumbles-lost 0-0 3-0
Penalties-yards 5-27 2-10
Denver 8 7 0 0 – 15
West Branch 7 8 0 7 – 22
WB – Brandon Pedersen 80 punt return (Reese Gingerich kick)
DEN – Jackson Joerger 12 run (Carter Lanus run)
DEN – Joerger 5 run (Lanus kick)
WB – Brennen Dale 1 run (Dale run)
WB – Keaton Gates 10 run (Gingerich kick)
Individual Statistics
RUSHING – WB: Keaton Gates 15-82, Cooper Gates 3-14, Brennen Dale 3-10. DEN: Carter Lanus 22-101, Jackson Joerger 23-85, Brayton Hovey 15-31.
PASSING – WB: Brennen Dale 8-15-0 106. DEN: Jackson Joerger 5-14-0 110.
RECEIVING – WB: Brandon Pedersen 3-52, Conner Capper 2-28, Nolan Staker 2-10, Cooper Gates 1-6. DEN: Jackson Schoville 2-51, Tarek Knoblock 1-21, Brayton Hovey 1-21, Lincoln Roethler 1-17.
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