INDIANOLA — Highly-regarded Indianola — ranked as high as third in some Class 4A polls — had little trouble rolling to a 63-0 Homecoming victory over Perry Friday in their District 5 meeting.
“Out kids played really hard, we were facing a very talented team,” Perry head coach Bryce Pierce said. “Indianola is a team than can make some noise in the playoffs.”
Things went awry for the Bluejays (0-5, 0-1) almost from the opening moments. The guests lost quarterback Caden Heck to injury, forcing Jeremiah Cregeen into the role.
“We had (several) unfortunate injures that forced us to make some lineup changes as we went throughout the night, but our kids did a nice job of adapting to them,” Pierce said. “Schematically guys were in the right place on offense and on defense, and we hustled all over the field.”
The Indians (5-0, 1-0) wasted little time in putting away any thoughts of drama, with Bennett Brueck finding Carter Erickson for a 44-yard touchdown pass, with Breuck finding Drew Kingery on a 20-yard TD aerial and Johnny Menke on another scoring aerial as the hosts grabbed a 21-0 lead. A 46-yard punt return for another end zone visit moved the margin to 28-0 after one quarter of play.
Walker Whalen caught a short Brody Blake pass, made a man miss, and ran for a 37-yard TD in the second frame, with Erickson returning an interception 27 yards for a score moments later for a 42-0 halftime lead. Two short TD runs in the third and a final scoring spurt in the fourth capped the scoring.
Cregeen played a gritty game and was under duress nearly as soon as the ball touched his hands. He was assessed 22 total carries for a net gain of one yard.
So dominant was the Indianola defense that the hosts either recorded a sack or else made a tackle behind the line of scrimmage 17 times in their victory.
Logan Haynes ran twice for four yards as Perry finished with 32 runs for a loss of five yards in the contest.
Cregeen was 2-of-5 in the air for 15 yards, with Gavin Hegstrom having one catch for 12 yards and Haynes one for three yards.
Haynes had 3.5 tackles, Hegstrom three and Abe Ruiz three to lead Perry. Alex Fickbohm had a stop and a fumble recovery, with Ruiz also falling on an Indian fumble.
“We did force a nice turnover and recovered a muffed punt,” Pierce said, saluting the determined effort of his team despite the obvious mismatch. “Shaking hands at the end of the night their coaching staff told me they thought our kids played really hard and they could tell they did not quit. I am really proud of our guys for that.”
Perry hosts undefeated Bondurant-Farrar at Dewey Field Friday. B-F was a 39-29 winner over visiting Carlisle in week five.
