Iowa Valley wins convincingly

MARENGO — Iowa Valley’s football team bounced back from its first loss this season with a convincing win over New London in a battle of the Tigers last Friday night at Marengo, 68-22.

Iowa Valley outgained New London 532-196 in total yards and shut them out 46-0 in the first, third and fourth quarters to improve their record to 3-1 overall and 1-1 in the district.

New London fell to 0-3, 0-2.

“A great team win,” said Iowa Valley Coach Casey Krull. “We had a really good first quarter, then faced some adversity in the second quarter where they started doing some things we had not seen before, and it took us a little bit to adjust.”

Iowa Vally jumped out to a 22-0 lead in the first quarter, scoring touchdowns on a 2-yard run by Dawson Smith, a 17-yard pass from Nolan Kriegel to Caleb Haak and 43-yard run by Chance Hoyt.

New London scored all 22 of its points in the second period with junior quarterback Gavin Menke-Bailey completing a 20-yard pass to Cale Westerbeck for one of those scores and running for the other two.

New London didn’t gain any ground in the period, however, as Iowa Valley matched them point-for-point to lead 44-22 at halftime.

Kriegel tossed touchdown passes of 67 yards to Owen Bral and 23 yards to Ian Smith in the quarter, and Dawson Smith found the end zone a second time on a 45-yard run.

Iowa Valley went on to shut out New London 24-0 in the second half, scoring 16 of those points in the third period on a 3-yard run by Hoyt and 15-yard pass from Kriegel to Bral. Kriegl’s 13-yard TD run in the fourth quarter capped the scoring.

Dawson Smith finished the night with 168 yards rushing on 10 carries and two TD’s. Kriegel, also on 10 carries, had 132 yards and one TD, and Hoyt scored both times he touched the ball for 46 yards.

Kriegel was 6-of-11 passing for 148 yards and the four TDs, two to Bral and one each to Haack and Ian Smith.

Just freshmen, Kriegel and Hoyt also scored all seven of Iowa Valley’s two-point conversions between them — five by Kriegel and two by Hoyt.

Iowa Valley will travel to North English this Friday for a key district game against the English Valleys Bears (2-1, 1-1).

Iowa Valley has the following week off before returning home Sept. 29 to face second-ranked Winfield Mount Union (3-0, 2-0). The Wolves handled WACO last week, 34-8. WACO dealt Iowa Valley it only loss two weeks ago, 46-22.