DES MOINES — In the 2014 regular season finale Woodward-Granger slipped past visiting Des Moines Christian, 12-8, to grab a playoff spot in a loser-stays-home contest.
Friday saw the tables turned, as host DMC scored a 46-21 win over W-G to climb into the third playoff spot in Class 1A District 2 while the Hawks were sent home. Both teams are 4-5 overall, but DMC was 3-3 in district play while W-G finished 2-4. It is first time since the 2006 season that Woodward-Granger will not appear in the postseason.
The Lions took to the air to decimate the Hawk defense, Antony Muse proved all but unstoppable. Muse caught five passes for 112 yards, four of them for touchdowns, the longest of which was from 58 yards away. Jake Lowe added a 3-yard TD catch as quarterback Nathan Herbers finished 12-of-21 for 227 yards and five scores through the air. Herbers connected with six different receivers in the victory.
Muse found the end zone on a five-yard run as well as he finished with a team-best 71 yards on 10 rushes. Eight different Lions ran the ball, with the team collecting 207 yards on the ground on 37 rushes.
DMC’s defense intercepted W-G quarterback Brendan Bird twice while recovering two Hawk fumbles. Payton Evans had nine tackles and Cole Peterson eight for the hosts.
Bird threw for 99 yards while connecting on 6-of-16 attempts, with Race Brant throwing one pass, an 11-yard touchdown to Johnnie Morgan, who had three receptions for 75 yards. Brant caught two passes for 26 yards, Payton Tague one ball for 12 yards and Austin Scharlau one for three yards.
W-G ran 49 times for 331 yards as a team but only found the end zone twice. Junior Tanner Vermaas hauled the ball 30 times for 209 yards and two scores, one coming from 51 yards away. He finished the season with 1,129 yards and 11 TDs on 244 carries, an average of 4.6 yards per carry.
Tague (5-77), Scharlau (5-45), Brant (6-6) and Josh Saak (1-3) also had a role in the ground attack. Vermaas added one two-point conversion, with the other Hawk point coming on a Tory Santi PAT boot.
Scharlau and Vermaas had 8.5 tackles apiece for the defense, with Hunter Vermaas making seven stops while Nick Musich had 4.5 denials, including one tackle for loss and a sack. Freshman Alex Kirton also had a tackle behind the line of scrimmage, with Drew Jacobson recovering a Lion fumble.
DMC (4-5) will travel to Madrid (7-2) Wednesday for a Class 1A First Round playoff game, with kickoff set for 7 p.m. The Tigers topped the Lions, 46-20, in a non-district meeting in week five of the season.
The loss ends the prep grid careers of 11 Hawk seniors: Brant, Morgan, Musich, Santi, Dakotah Bailey, James Barger, Josh Groves, Dan Johnson, Cole Moran, Jordan Pierce and Hunter Vermaas. All were freshmen when the Hawks finished 11-1 and advanced to the Class A quarterfinals. W-G was a combined 26-15 overall in the four years the group were members of the program.
