Turnovers ruin good start for Hawks

WEST LIBERTY — It was a bolt through the blue uniforms of West Liberty’s defense.
Central Lee quarterback Brett Cook raced 80 yards for a touchdown on the first offensive play of Friday’s Class 2A District 6 game, silencing the Homecoming crowd.
Fourteen seconds in, no one knew that it would be the last big play for the Hawks. In the end, turnovers helped feed a relentless West Liberty offense in the Comets’ 45-6 win.
Two fumbles and an interception led to three touchdowns for West Liberty, which answered that Cook touchdown with six consecutive scoring drives for touchdowns in the first half.
“When we play clean football, it gives us a good chance,” Central Lee coach Doug Dodds said. “When we don’t, it’s not a good thing.”|
Cook’s run to the left ignited the Central Lee crowd, but West Liberty had a response, going 54 yards in seven plays, a possession finished by Owen Daufeldt’s 1-yard run to put the Comets up 7-6.
Madden Meek’s interception of a Cook pass gave the Comets the ball back on the Central Lee 26-yard line, leading to a 6-play drive completed by Briggs Collins’ 2-yard touchdown run on fourth-and-goal.\
A fumble recovery at the Central Lee 21 led to Collins’ 3-yard touchdown run, and West Liberty led 21-6 at the end of the first quarter.
“They went down the field for that first score, OK, that was a good drive for them,” Dodds said. “But then when we had the turnovers, that’s what really hurt us.”

|Central Lee, meanwhile, couldn’t move the ball. The Hawks had just one yard of offense on their other three possessions of the first quarter.
Daufeldt’s 1-yard run early in the second quarter increased the lead to 28-6, then after another fumble West Liberty started a drive at its own 37, going five plays for a touchdown, a 23-yard pass from Devin Mericle to Meek.
A 26-yard touchdown pass from Mericle to Meek gave West Liberty the 42-6 halftime lead.
The Comets outgained Central Lee 148-33 in the second quarter, with Mericle, who was 12 of 13 passing in the first half, throwing for 120 of those yards.
The second half was played under a running clock under the IHSAA’s 35-point rule, but Dodds liked the way his team responded on West Liberty’s lone possession of the third quarter. The Comets were stopped on third down at the Central Lee 16, leading to Uriel Andrade-Martinez’s 33-yard field goal.
“Right after the break, they get the ball, but we hold them to the field goal,” Dodds said. “That’s what we had to do. We had that ability tonight, we just didn’t execute in the first half.
“We had to get some stops in the first half, flip the field a little bit. But we just couldn’t do it.”
Central Lee plays host to West Burlington-Notre Dame next Friday.
“The biggest thing we have to do is just focus on ourselves,” Dodds said. “We need to play good, clean football to have a chance to win, and we have to keep working on that.”