Glenwood stumbles at Creston
Rarely does a team out yard its opponent, have less turnovers and win the battle of field position and not come out with the win. But that's exactly what happened on Friday as Creston knocked off Glenwood 14-6 in Class 3A, District 8 football action.
“They made it a struggle for us,” said Glenwood coach Brian Albert, whose team dropped to 3-2 overall and 2-1 in the district.
The Rams got on the board first in the first quarter when Cole Darrow picked off Luke Eblen’s first pass of the game to set up Michael Lawler’s 24 yard field goal.
Seth Pals scored from two yards on the next series to put Creston up 7-6.
The score would remain at 7-3 into the third quarter when Rams' running back Dylan Blankenship finally got loose on a 75-yard run before being pulled down at the Panther 10-yard line. After three plays netted three yards, Lawler booted a 28-yard field goal to cut the lead to 7-6.
But the Panthers came right back on their next possession and marched 85 yards in a 17 play drive to go up 14-6 on Luke Eblen's 5-yard scoring strike to Pals. The drive took more than nine minutes and more than that, Albert said, it took some of the fight out of the Rams.
“They kept nibbling away. They didn't get a lot of big plays, they just ground out their yards,” he said. “Mentally that took some wind out of our sails.”
Glenwood failed to muster much offense on its final two drives.
The Rams out yarded the Panthers 229 to 217 and did not have a turnover in the game. It was the Rams inability to stop the Panther running game when they had to that was the difference. The Panthers entered the game having passed the ball 156 times and ran the ball 142 times this season and Eblen finished 12-of-20 passing for 98 yards but Creston used its running game more than Albert had seen on film.
“Our mindset was their passing game. We expected they'd pass more,” Albert said. “But they had some success running it, which surprised us.”
Blankenship finished with 105 yards on 15 carries, who ran his streak of 100-yard rushing games to 16 in the loss, but take out his 75 yard scamper and the senior finished with 14 carries for 30 yards.
“Their defense played well,” said Albert. “They have good size on the defensive line and good linebackers. We just never seemed to get it going.”
Ram quarterback Nick Uphoff threw for 124 yards on 12-of-27 passing and added seven tackles on defense. Blankenship added 13 tackles, including three for loss, on defense.