The Hawks will host Now Hampton on Wednesday night in a first round play-off game

The West Delaware Hawk football team put a cap on an undefeated regular season by downing a good Vinton Shellsburg Viking football team 21-13 in Vinton last Friday night.

The game was played on less than desirable field conditions with the turf being extremely wet and muddy but in the end it mattered not as the Hawks came away with victory number nine of the season.

Vinton scored the games first touchdown just seven seconds into the second quarter on a 5-yard run by Dusty Schirm. Schirm’s TD capped an 88-yard 15-play drive for the Vikings the final 7:53 of the first quarter and the first seven second of the second quarter.

The Hawks had taken the opening kick-off and put together a nice drive down to the Viking 2-yard.

However, a holding penalty gave the Hawks a third and goal from the Viking 12 where on fourth down BJ Hermsen’s pass to Zach McCool in the endzone fell incomplete.

Following an exchange of punts the Hawks put together their first scoring drive of the game starting at their own 26.

Alex Boom busted through a pair of Viking defenders and raced 41-yards to pay dirt with 2:32 left in the first half to knot the score at 7-7.

The Hawks forced the Vikings to punt on their next possession giving West Delaware another shot at scoring with 1:32 left in the second quarter.

The first four plays of the drive were disastrous with two procedure penalties an incompletion and an intentional grounding call. The result was that the Hawks were faced with a third and 40 from their own 19-yard line and not much time remaining.

It was then that BJ Hermsen connected with Zach McCool for 28 yards to the Hawk 47 to bring up fourth and 12. Hermsen then hit Tyler Jackson over the middle for 19 yards and a Hawk first down at the Viking 28. Another pass to Zach McCool this time good for 13 yards gave the Hawks a first down at the Viking 15.

Hermsen’s’ fourth consecutive completion of the drive, this time to Tyler Jackson covered the final 15-yards to give the Hawks a 13-7 lead with just 13.4 seconds left in the first half.

Justin Krogmann added his second successful PAT of the night to give the Hawks a 14-7 half time lead.

The third quarter started with both teams turning the ball over.

Following the Hawks second half kick off the Vikings fumbled the ball on their own 39 where Tyler Jackson recovered the ball for the Hawks.

Three plays later the Vikings picked off a BJ Hermsen pass at their own 37.

The Hawk defense forced the Vikings to punt but four plays later a Hawk fumble gave the Vikings the ball back on the Hawk 47 with 4:17 left in the third period.

Vinton marched down to the West Delaware five yard line where on first and goal Jamie Hass recovered a Dusty Schirm fumble to halt the Viking drive.

The Hawks were able to move from their two-yardline to their own 26 before having to put the ball.

The Vikings then put together a 12-play 82-yard drive to pull to with in 14-13 on a 26-yard scoring pass from Ross Timmermans to Dylan Rickles with 5:21 left in the game.

The Vikings went for the two-point conversion, which failed leaving the Hawks with a one-point lead.

The final points of the game were put on the board for the Hawks when Tony Brown broke up the middle and scored from 22-yards out with 37.1 seconds left in the game to seal the victory and an unbeaten season.

Alex Boom was the Hawks leading rusher with 125 yards on 23 carries. Tony Brown added 61 yards.

Game stats
vs. Vinton
First downs - WD 15, VS 13; rushing - WD 34-209, VS 44-189; passing - WD 10-20-2-148, VS 7-19-1-96; total yards - WD 357, VS 285; punts - WD 2-52 yard average, VS 3-36 yard average; fumbles - WD 2-1, VS 3-2; penalties - WD 7-40, VS 10-70.

Individual leaders
Rushing - Alex Boom 23-125, Tony Brown 8-61, Zach McCool 1-18; receiving - Austin Cole 1-7, Tyler Jackson 4-59, Jett MacTaggert 1-9, Zach McCool 2-46, Chris Harbaugh 1-12, Alex Boom 1-15; passing - BJ Hermsen 10-20-2-148; tackles - Zach McCool 3, Dustin Jaeger 11, Chris Harbaugh 4, Alex Boom 1, Nate Lahr 15, Jett MacTaggert 6, Tyler Jackson 7, Jamie Hass 11, Nate Allison 8, Tony Brown 7, Brett Appleton 6, Tony Marbach 1, Mike Havertape 2, Nathan King 4.

The West Delaware season has at least one more game left, a date with New Hampton on Brown Field this Wednesday night at 7:00 p.m. in a first round Class 3A play-off contest.

The Cickasaws were the Class 3A District 3 runners-up to Decorah and will enter the game with a 7-2 overall record.

New Hampton started the season with a 49-6 win over Webster City before falling to North Fayette 48-28 in their second game of the year.

They started district play with a 25-7 loss to Decorah (the district 3 champion) before running off six straight wins to claim the runner-up spot in district 3.

The Chickasaws six straight wins came over Crestwood 14-7 in overtime, Waukon 21-6 (whom the Hawks defeated 7-6 in game two of the season), Waverly Shell Rock 41-21, Charles City 32-9, Oelwein 34-20 and last Friday night 33-9 over Independence.

New Hampton comes into the game led by runningback Bobby Schwickerath who has rushed for 972 yards on 158 carries while scoring 12 touchdowns.

Quarterback Dylan Boos has completed 44 of 92 passes good for 679 yards and 10 touchdowns. He has been intercepted six times.

The leading receiver for the Chickasaws is Gerry Burgart with 9 catches good for 216 yards. Paul Schuchhardt has caught 12 balls for 185 yards.

As a team New Hampton averages 25.1 points per game while allowing their opponents an average of 15.7 points per game.

Offensively they have rushed for 1546 yards (172 yards per game) and passed for 702 yards (78 yards per game). Defensively they gave up 1178 rushing yards (130.8 yards per game) and 1137 passing yards (126.3 yards per game).

The Hawks will counter with Chickasaws with runningbacks Alex Boom 167 carries for 1250 yards and 16 touchdowns along with Tony Brown who has rushed for 448 yards on 71 carries.

The Hawks BJ Hermsen has thrown for 837 yards, completing 50 of 88 passes with 12 touchdowns and six interceptions.

The leading receivers for the Hawks are Zach McCool 24 catches for 400 yards, Austin Cole 10 catches for 162 yards and Tyler Jackson 7 catches for 158 yards.

Offensively the Hawks scored 303 points (33.7 points per game); rushed for 2357 yards (261.8 yards per game) and threw for 850 yards (94.4 yards per game). The Hawks are averaging 356.2 yards of total offense per contest.

On the defensive side of the ball the Hawks gave up 116 points (12.8 points per game) while allowing 1361 rushing yards (151.2 yards per game) and 671 passing yards (74.6 yards per game).

KEN BOESENBERG/Press The Hawks Katie Wessels (left photo) puts down a kill during the Hawks 3 games to none win over Oelwein last Monday night in Manchester. Katie Murphy (right photo) gets ready to set up teammate Emily Heffernen for a kill against the Huskies.

Game stats
vs. Charles City
Kills - Emily Prinsen 6, Katie Wessels 12, Katie Murphy 2, Lindsey McDowell 8, Emily Heffernen 6; blocks - Katie Wessels 5, Katie Murphy 1, Lindsey McDowell 1, Emily Heffernen 3, Ashlee Allison 1;assists - Katie Murphy 23; service aces - Emily Prinsen 1, Katie Wessels 4, Katie Murphy 1, Tess Wegner 2; digs - Emily Prinsen 7, Katie Wessels 3, Katie Murphy 5, Katlyn Heiserman 14, Lindsey McDowell 4, Kaylin Kelchen 7, Emily Heffernen 1, Tess Wegner 6.

West Delaware girls end season with the State Cross Country Meet in Ft. Dodge

KEN BOESENBERG/Press The Hawks Anna Reilly nears the end of the state cross country race in Ft. Dodge. Anna led the Hawks with a fine 22nd place finish on Saturday.

In the team race the Hawks were 11th in the field of 15 competing teams, scoring 356 points.

Harlan was the Class 3A Champion with 115 points, followed by Cedar Rapids Xavier and WaMaC Conference champion Marion.

Dubuque Wahlert was fourth with Knoxville coming in fifth.