No. 5 Demons dog Bloodhounds

WASHINGTON - Respect is not given, it is earned. The Washington High School football team has developed a reputation and there is a lot of respect because of it.

The Demons rolled past Fort Madison 29-7 Friday at Case Field to preserve their No. 5 ranking, to stay unbeaten, to start Class 3A District 5 with a victory and to burnish the respect it earned with victories over traditional powers Bettendorf and Solon.

Fort Madison coach Derek Doherty prepped his team for the game by talking about the ranking. When asked if there was a turning point in the night, he said, 'To be honest with you, yes, when we got off the bus. Our guys were wide-eyed. We told them this is a team that is going to start fast. They are not going to slow down and we have to be ready for it.”

The Demons backed up Doherty's claim, taking a 2-0 lead on the third play of the game when Wilx Witthoft got a sack in the end zone for a safety.

'I feel like we got stabbed with a double-edged sword, So it hurts.” Doherty said. 'Credit to Washington for being ready to go from the first whistle.”

The Demons also play to the last whistle as evidenced by a Trashaun Willis touchdown pass across the middle to Spencer Sotelo with less than a second before halftime for a 15-0 lead. A week after putting his stamp on a Solon victory with a 69-yard touchdown run, Willis went 72 yards on a sweep left, shedding attempted tackles as he stormed into the end zone with 1 minute, 50 seconds left in the first quarter.

The score before the half was set up by Jacob Miller's punt return, the result of a week of practice, Washington head coach James Harris had a lot of faith in Miller's ability so he called time at 0:18, forcing a Bloodhounds punt. Miller caught the punt past midfield and ran it all the way to the 14-yard line.

'Coach Harris doesn't want us to take punt returns for granted so we have worked on them a lot as an opportunity for a big play,” Miller said.

It may have been the biggest play of the game even though Miller didn't make it to end zone. 'The blocks held up and that helped. I thought I was going to go all the way, but I got tripped up a little bit. It was a fun return.”

Willis capped a 55-yard drive with a 9-yard TD run for a 21-0 lead with 6:45 remaining in the third. Witthoft provided 42 of those yards on four carries.

Ethan Zieglowsky provided a candidate for biggest play of the game 2 minutes later. The Bloodhounds had a third-and-2 at midfield when he turned an interception into a TD for a 29-0 lead. The play was a result of film study, probably 12 hours worth, according to Zieglowsky. 'Coaches tell us to watch film and that made me ready when the time happened because I was where I was supposed to be. I jumped the route, got a good break on it. The runback was interesting because there was two guys and only one blocker, but I managed to get around the first guy and ended up in the end zone.”

Zieglowsky snagged another interception later but was tackled right away.

'Zieg had a nice game,” Harris said. 'He got his eyes in the wrong spot a couple times last week, so it was good to see that improvement from him.”

Sotelo intercepted a pass late in the game to end the last Fort Madison threat.

In between those picks, FM scored, courtesy of a lot of yellow flags. In the game, Washington was flagged 13 times for 165 yards, which Harris called 'embarrassing and unacceptable.” The Demons only totaled 203 yards of offense while FM had 85 yards (38 yards on 11-of-24 passes and 47 yards on 20 rushes). Willis was 5-of-15 passing for 34 yards. Washington's 169 yards rushing came from Witthoft (nine for 65), Willis (10 for 76), Wyatt Stout (seven for 21) and Ethan Patterson (two for 18).

Harris has told Demon players officials are like the weather, beyond their control. He pointed out that teams and fans are obviously biased and cannot see what the referees see. Refs have a difficult and demanding job calling plays. Without them, there would be no games to watch.

'I hypocritically broke my own rule and let the officials get to me emotionally, which led to me being flagged after Fort Madison scored,” Harris said. 'I believe the officials are doing the best they can.”

FM's scoring drive was 10 plays, five of those were Demon penalties, late in a game with a big lead.

'That will get us beat and cost us a game, plain and simple,” Harris said. 'I pledge to the Washington community to address and fix this moving forward. Our players are outstanding young people and will represent themselves as such.”

Next week promises to bring more emotion with a game at rival Mt. Pleasant.

'It feels great to start off district play with this win,” Miller said. 'It is a start in a long journey ahead.”

'We were making the plays we were supposed to all night long,” Zieglowsky said. 'All that matters is that we are one step closer to what we are trying to do.”