March 19, 2024

Cardinals cruise past Clarke

LEON — Central Decatur head coach Jon Pedersen said his team talked all week about getting a fast start against Clarke here on Friday.

That’s exactly what his Cardinals did, building a 52-0 halftime lead before going on to win 58-20.

“We’re kind of in a groove right now,” Pedersen said. “We’re playing pretty good football. We started the game fast, which is what we talked about all week, making sure we did. I thought we responded really well.”

The Cardinals scored less than 2 minutes into the game, when on their second play from scrimmage, Trenton Wells connected with Peyton Pedersen for a 31-yard touchdown, putting Central Decatur up 6-0.

After a second straight three-and-out for Clarke, the lead grew to 14-0 when Carter Boothe hit Wells on a swing pass out of the backfield for a 19-yard touchdown. Wells ran in the 2-point conversion.

Clarke moved the ball on its third drive, but it eventually stalled out after two fumbles resulted in loss of yardage.

“Offensively, we had some good luck running the ball up the middle against PCM (last week),” Clarke head coach Michael Kline said. “They did a pretty good job, Central Decatur, of getting a good push up the middle. When you’re going to play 5 yards and a cloud of dust, you can’t take 6-yard losses, because that screws up your whole pattern.”

Rayden Boswell ran in a 1-yard touchdown with 1:28 to go in the first quarter, followed by a Wells 2-point conversion, to make it 22-0.

Less than 2 minutes into the second quarter, Wells scored on a 10-yard run up the middle. Peyton Gilbert’s 2-point conversion made the score 30-0.

Gilbert punched in a 15-yard TD with 6:00 left in the second quarter that gave Central Decatur a 36-0 lead.

It marked Gilbert’s second game since returning from injury, and he saw an increased role on offense this week.

“We’ll keep working him in a little more each week until he’s back full, which is hopefully next week,” Pedersen said. “He’s our best blocker and he’s a physical blocker at the point of attack. Short yardage situations, he’s just a hammer. He just is a very physical kid that loves to play the game. It’s kind of infectious for the whole team.”

Gilbert’s presence is felt on defense, as well. The senior recorded one solo tackle and seven assisted tackles in the game, along with some jarring hits.

“Once PG got back and we were able to kind of get our identity back of being a physical team again, that started to happen a lot more,” Pedersen said about the hard hits. “Kids are really rallying around that. We’ve got kids hitting that maybe haven’t hit all year. They’re really stepping up and doing that now, so we’re excited.”

The Cardinals scored on every possession of the first half, capping off the 52-0 half with a 70-yard interception return TD by Boothe and a 4-yard TD run by Wells.

Wells finished the game with 80 passing yards and one touchdown to go with 109 rushing yards and two scores on 10 carries and the 19-yard touchdown reception. Defensively, he recorded six solo tackles, including three solo stops for loss and two solo sacks.

Pedersen recorded four catches for 86 yards and a touchdown.

Clarke highlights

Despite losing quarterback Brandyne Olin late in the first half to an ankle injury, Clarke finally began seeing some success in its run game in the second half.

But, with the state’s running clock mercy rule already in effect, it was too little, too late for the Indians.

Gordon Witt put Clarke on the scoreboard with a 46-yard touchdown run with 7:44 to go in the third quarter, running around the left side and sprinting untouched down the sideline.

After Central Decatur’s Clayton Dale returned an interception 57 yards for a touchdown to make the score 58-7, Clarke answered back with another Witt touchdown run.

This time, Witt took the ball up the gut and burst through the other side, sprinting 57 yards for a touchdown. After a missed extra point attempt, Clarke trailed 58-13 with :27 left in the third quarter.

“Gordon’s a great kid, running counters,” Kline said. “He’s got the speed that he doesn’t slow down ever. He just hits it and goes. He busted a few against PCM last week and a couple tonight. He’s a kid that just plays hard. He doesn’t know any other speed other than 100 percent. Those are the kinds of kids you love. Can’t coach effort. He has it inside and gives it every single play.”

The final score of the game came with 8:22 left on the clock, as Jake Leeps punched it in from 7 yards out for the final 58-20 margin following Ali Aly’s extra point.

Clarke, now 0-8 for the season and 0-5 in Class 2A District 7, finishes out its regular season at home Friday on senior night against ninth-ranked Albia.

“For those seniors, hopefully we can give it a good show,” Kline said. “Albia is a good team, very physical. We need to be more physical than what we were tonight. We’ve got a week to prepare, get better and go out and play the last one.”

Friday’s game was senior night for Central Decatur. Eight Cardinal seniors were honored during a senior night ceremony at halftime. They were Wells, Kyle Palmer, Noah Bishop, Gilbert, Gabe Roberts, Garrett Clark, Bryce Johnson and Dale.

Central Decatur enters its final game of the season Friday at Class 1A District 8 leader Van Meter battling for playoff seeding.

The Cardinals, at 6-2 overall and 3-2 in district play, can be either the 3-seed or the 4-seed in District 8.

A win plus a loss by Des Moines Christian against Woodward-Granger gives Central Decatur the 3-seed. A loss plus a Des Moines Christian win against Woodward-Granger gives the Cardinals the 4-seed.

A loss plus a Woodward-Granger win over Des Moines Christian forces a three-way tie to determine two spots in the district. But, Central Decatur’s point differential is good enough that even with a loss of 13 or more points, the Cardinals would make the playoffs. Their seed would be determined by how many points by which Woodward-Granger defeats Des Moines Christian.

“We’ve been telling our team that we’ve faced a lot of adversity this year,” Pedersen said. “We’ve had a ton of injuries. I’d rather have that team that can maybe be 7-2 that’s faced adversity and come out on the other side of it rather than that team that’s never met it. Because there’s going to be adversity at some time during the year. We’ve already been there and already been through it, so hopefully we can grow from that.”