One game does not define a season, but nonetheless, Friday night’s 44-6 loss was a tough one to swallow.
While West Liberty played Regina straight up for large portions of the game, a few big plays got away from the Comets and they were not able to mount an offensive response.
“Honestly, I thought we battled hard. I’m proud of the kids and their effort,” Comets coach Jason Iske said. “It wasn’t something where they got up early and we just kind of gave up. That wasn’t the case at all Our kids battled, stayed in it and stayed together as a team.
“Obviously, they made the big plays. You tip your hat to them for doing it. But honestly, things that we did, we blew some coverages and things like that just shot ourselves in the foot.”
The scores came quickly in the first quarter as Iowa City Regina quarterback Gentry Dumount connected on touchdown passes of 65, 42, and 25 yards.
A field goal at the end of the 12-minute period put West Liberty in a quick 24-0 hole.
Then, the weather started to become, as he left the game and did not return due to heat related symptoms.
“It was hot and guys were gassed,” Iske noted. “But as far as the actual weather itself, we only had one player that was having issues with cramping. I think, honestly, it was more of the first game and getting your sea legs under you more than anything.”
The scoring came to a halt with no points scored by either side in the second quarter.
Then, a spark, as Comet senior Jayce McHugh took the opening kickoff of the second half 80 yards to the house.
But the gut-punch came just seconds later as Regina took the ensuing kickoff 70 yards for a touchdown to take the wind out of the Comets’ sails.
They put up two more touchdowns in the quarter to put this game on ice.
Despite the final score of the game, Iske still found plenty of positive takeaways from the game.
“The effort and all that was there,” Iske said. “As a coach, sometimes that’s hard to get out of players. So, the fact that’s there and the things that maybe weren’t so good, those are things we can coach and we can fix. That makes us feel a lot better as a coaching staff.
“I thought (junior) Ryker Dengler handled the offense pretty well in his first varsity start. We have two tremendous receivers, (senior) Jayce McHugh and (junior) Seth Axsom. Those two guys had good games when the ball came their way… (senior) Diego Sanchez didn’t have a ton of yards or anything, but on both sides of the ball, I thought he fought hard all night. He threw some blocks on offense that helped Ryker be able to extend some plays in the passing game.”
Dengler finished the game completing 16 of 32 passes for 137 yards. Senior Alexis Michel led the team with 24 rushing yards on three carries while Axsom caught seven balls for 87 yards.
On defense, Sanchez tallied four solo tackles and junior Jake Underbakke hauled in an interception.
There is still much to work on as the season gets underway. Emphasis in practice this week will be on the offensive line to give Dengler some extra time to work with, as well as in the secondary to prevent some of the big plays that occurred on Friday.
“I thought (the offensive line’s) effort was good for the first game as far as being where they’re supposed to be,” Iske said. “That type of stuff was really good. But cleaning up a lot of technique-type issues is where we have to start. Ryker was running for his life and we weren’t able to open up holes.
“And then just shoring up some of our pass defense. They had some big plays, and honestly, I think it was us shooting ourselves in the foot and kind of gave them some of the big plays.”
After all, this is just week one. There is a long season ahead of these Comets and the coaching staff knows that.
“I know the scoreboard doesn’t look like it, but I think there are some good things,” Iske said. “From our perspective, I think we see where this is going in the future. We aren’t dwelling on this loss.”
This week, West Liberty will travel to Wilton to try and get in the win column.
The Beavers got off to a winning start with a 13-0 win over Mid-Prairie last Friday.