IOWA FALLS — The Perry football team finished their 2017 season with a night that will be long remembered, as the Bluejays avenged a 22-point loss in the final game of 2016 with a 62-13 whipping of Iowa Falls-Alden Friday.
The 49-point margin of victory is the widest for Perry since a 55-0 win over Jefferson-Scranton in 2003. School archives note a 106-0 throttling of Dallas Center in 1918 and a 104-6 demolition of Audubon in 1922, but the 62 points scored Friday is easily the most in modern school history.
The win allowed Perry to finish 4-5 overall and 3-4 in Class 3A District 2 play. The Bluejays won four games in a season for the first time since 2013, and their three road victories are the most in a season away from Dewey Field in 15 years.
Iowa Falls-Alden (1-9, 1-6) had amassed over 550 yards of offense in their 42-20 win at Perry last season, including 491 rushing yards. The Perry defense clearly took offense at that memory and stifled IF-A, allowing only 102 yards on the ground and just 52 in the air. The Bluejays threw for 223 yards and ran for 157 while scoring seven times on offense and twice on defense.
“Our defense played exceptionally well, which was very special to see,” co-head coach Matt Hard, a 2002 Iowa Falls graduate, said. “The offense didn’t put up a lot of yards, but it is hard to complain about all of those points.”
IF-A quarterback Tyjon Rose scrambled into the open field and ran through a scattered defense for a 47-yard touchdown and a 7-0 Cadet lead just over two minutes into the game.
Perry responded immediately, marching directly down the field and scoring when quarterback Alexis Garrido found Brandon Kenyon for a 20-yard scoring connection to tie the game. The next Bluejay possession brought a sizable visiting crowd to their feet when Garrido flipped a short pass to speedster Reece Dunlap, who simply outran a trio of pursuers for a 77-yard touchdown and a 14-7 Perry lead.
Garrido put the game on his shoulders — or legs, as it were — in the second period with three rushing TDs on three consecutive possessions. A Mark Campos interception set up a seven-yard Garrido TD dash, with the senior scoring on a 14 run spurt and later on a one-yard dive set up by completing a 28-yard pass to Dunlap on a third-and-25 play.
German Alvarenga’s string of 20 consecutive made PAT kicks ended after the second Garrido score, with a strong wind causing a miss after the third TD to put Perry’s lead at 33-7.
The Cadets had their only sustained drive in the final two minutes of the half, with Kyler Hadwiger’s four-yard run setting the halftime score at 33-13.
Dunlap streaked from right to left across the back of south end zone and pulled in a 10-yard scoring dart from Garrido for a 40-13 lead 90 seconds into the second half.
Not content with scoring off a pass from his own quarterback, Dunlap decided — two plays later — to score off a Rose pass by stepping in front of an aerial and dashing 44 yards to pay dirt for a 46-13 lead.
The Cadet offense was pinned deep in their own zone and forced to punt on their next possession. A poor snap eluded Rose, who, realizing he would be tackled inside his own 10-yard line, intentionally booted the ball out of the back of the end zone as three Bluejays closed in, surrendering two points on a safety rather than setting up a likely touchdown.
The two points gave Perry 15 points in a span of 1 minute, 43 seconds and also put in a place a continuous clock.
The Perry bench erupted later in the period when sophomore defensive end Cole Snyder lived every lineman’s dream by drifting into the flat and picking off a Rose pass, then outrunning the speedy quarterback down the far sideline for a 60-yard TD that moved the margin to 55-13.
Kaleb Olejniczak also had an interception for the Jays, with Dunlap capping the scoring on a three-yard run early in the fourth quarter. Perry moved inside the IF-A 10-yard line late in the game, but took a series of intentional losses to run out the clock without doing additional damage.
“This was a lot of fun,” Dunlap said. “It is great to see all my teammates having fun.”
Garrido echoes those sentiments and pointed squarely to the future.
“This was a great way to end the season and a great way for us seniors to end our careers,” he said. “What I hope is that the guys who will be here next year remember this feeling and know that they can have it again and again if they are willing to work for it.”
Garrido finished 10-of-14 for 215 yards and three TDs passing while rushing 13 times for 58 yards and three TDs. He ends his season with 1,298 yards — second-most in a season all-time for Perry — with his 13 aerial TDs the most in at least the past 15 years.
Dunlap (4-126, 2 TDs) and Kenyon (4-46, 1 TD) sparkled again. The seniors put up nearly identical numbers this year, with Kenyon (39-587) and Dunlap (37-597) each catching six TDs.
Olejniczak caught three passes for 43 yards and spelled Garrido at quarterback, completing 1-of-2 passes to Jacob Huffman for eight yards.
Dunlap (4-66), Campos (8-20), Olejniczak (6-4), Donald Chavez (4-7) and Justin Stammer (1-2) helped fuel the ground game.
Rose finished 7-17-4 for 53 yards for the Cadets, with Hadwiger rushing for 57 yards on 16 carries to lead the hosts.
Hardy, who was doused with the water bucket after the game, said he was most proud of team’s attitude throughout the season.
“I think we proved with our double-overtime win in week one (a 38-31 victory at North Polk) that we had some mental toughness that maybe some of our teams haven’t had in the past,” the coach said. “We never got down on ourselves, never stopped believing in ourselves and always worked hard in preparation for each game.”
