JEFFERSON — Greene County rang the Cowbell Trophy for the fourth consecutive season Friday with a resounding 63-0 win over visiting Perry at Linduska Field.
The Rams (1-1) improved to 59-29-2 overall in the series, the oldest rivalry in Iowa and one of the oldest trophy games in the nation.
The hosts wasted little time in deciding the issue, instituting a continuous clock before the first quarter could even be completed by exploding to a 35-0 lead after only 10 minutes and 21 seconds of football.
A short run and a 17-pass from Bryce Stadler to Max Riley put the score at 14-0, with Nathan Black bursting 23 yards for a score with 7:08 still on the clock.
Patrick Daugherty’s first touch turned into a 38-yard rushing touchdown, with Black adding a 25-yard TD jaunt for a 35-0 Ram lead. Sophomore kicker Nathan Behne made the most of the scoring fest by connecting on all nine of his PAT kicks in the game.
Perry head coach Bryce Pierce pulled no punches in discussing his teams’ flat performance.
“Our effort had to be better,” he said. “When you find yourself in a game that gets away from you quickly you can still control a number of items.”
“For our program we want to have great effort, attitude and teamwork — or EAT, as we say,” Pierce added. “Unfortunately we didn’t stay on top of those Friday.”
Perry was dominated on both lines of scrimmage, with quarterback Caden Heck under immediate pressure even when the Rams did not bring extra rushers. Multiple sacks, combined with a frustrating number of errant shotgun snaps left Heck with negative 34 ground yards on 10 attempts.
The Jays received 15 yards on six runs from Juan Hernandez and six yards on eight carries from Jeremiah Cregeen, with Omar Jaimes (4-0) and Logan Haynes (1 for a loss of 16 yards) also running the ball. Perry ended the game with 29 rushes for negative 15 yards.
Heck was 5-11-3 in the air, connecting with Gavin Hegstrom (2-4), Holden Smith (2-4) and Hernandez (1 for a loss of three yards) for five total yards.
Perry was led defensively by three tackles apiece from Tanner Burgin and Kevin Colin.
Greene County scored on a 38-yard pass from Stalder to Brenner Gallagher and on a two-yard Jackson Morton plunge to enter the halftime break leading 49-0.
After a scoreless third period reserve Gabe Ebersole hit Trey Schilling for a touchdown strike of 30 yards, with Brent Dennhardt dashing in from 12 yards away to cap the scoring.
“We ended up making playing time decisions throughout the night that were based off pure effort and attitude, and a number of our sophomores stepped in and did a nice job,” Pierce said. “Our challenge going forward is practicing harder, faster, and better, and out staff is taking time to evaluate how we make the improvements to put our kids in better positions to have success.”
Perry (0-2) will host Clarke for Homecoming at Dewey Field Friday while Greene County hosts Kuemper Catholic.
