Waverly defense stifles Jetmore; Bulldogs roll to 2nd straight title
Monday, November 20, 2006
NEWTON — The biggest adjustment for Waverly at halftime of Saturday’s 8-Man Division I State championship game against Jetmore didn’t come in the form of new plays or personnel substitutions.
Instead, it was the coach’s son assuming the role of a coach on the field that helped Waverly bury Jetmore, 58-20, to capture the Bulldogs’ second straight State title.
Holding a 36-20 lead at halftime, the Waverly players expressed concern that the Jetmore players were reading the Waverly coaches’ signals from the sideline and adjusting accordingly on defense.
So out of the locker room, junior linebacker Matt Hevel, head coach Mike Hevel’s son, called every play on defense from the field with little or no help from the sideline.
It worked, as the Bulldogs did not allow the Longhorns to come close to scoring again out of the break, while Waverly’s offense continued its high-powered ways.
“Our stud linebacker, Matt Hevel ... he called our defense in the second half. He called every play on his own with no coaches, no help, no nothing,” senior safety/running back Matt Coursen said. “Yeah, we made plays, but he was calling the defenses and he was seeing what was working and what wasn’t. That’s all on him.”
In shutting out Jetmore (12-1) in the second half, the Waverly defense, under Matt Hevel’s direction, only allowed Jetmore to gain 33 yards.
“This is the smallest defensive front we’ve played against,” Jetmore coach Chad Cohoon said, “and we couldn’t drive our feet enough to move the ball.”
Meanwhile, the Waverly offense turned from its high-flying aerial attack of the first half to an effective ground game that ate up chunks of yards and clock to pull away.
Waverly set the tone for the second half right out of the break, as the Bulldogs took the opening kickoff and drove 62 yards in 11 plays — nine of which were runs — with Dakota Foster scoring on a 15-yard TD run to put Waverly up, 44-20, after the two-point conversion was good.
“That first drive of the third quarter was the key to the game, I thought, because we ate up a lot of clock and scored,” coach Mike Hevel said. “We were up 16 at the half, and we took the opening kickoff and we ground it out.”
After gaining 77 yards on the ground in the first half, Waverly racked up 124 rushing yards in the second half and still scored on three of its four possessions.
Perhaps the hero of the game for Waverly came in the form of 5-foot-6, 130-pound receiver Casey Church.
Church entered the game with just four total touchdowns for the entire season, yet he burned a Jetmore defense intent on stopping Coursen, running back Dakota Foster and receiver Heath Redding to the tune of four catches for 107 yards and four touchdowns.
“I just think throughout the season, (teams) keyed on Matt and Dakota and Heath, and they just hit me one time, and after that it just kind of flowed our way. The offensive line blocked well, Dentin looked, I was open,” Church said. “To have four (touchdowns) in one game, this is the game to do it right here.”
Church’s four touchdown receptions were part of a seven-touchdown performance by quarterback Dentin Chapman, who finished 9-of-18 passing for 209 yards and the seven scores, six of which came in the first half. Chapman’s touchdowns tosses came on plays of 48, 40, 8, 20, 43, 10 and 6 yards.
“We thought we could come in and throw the ball well,” Hevel said. “Jetmore was tough to run on. You’ve got to give their kids a lot of credit. They were probably one of the toughest teams we’ve played this year to run the ball on. Casey Church had a big game for us in the passing department.”
Coursen finished his outstanding career at Waverly with a workmanlike 24 rushes for 79 yards a score and 3 catches for 74 yards and another TD.
Though he was bottled up for much of the day, Coursen said he knew his teammates could step up and keep the offense humming.
“The thing that happens is a lot of teams, just like Jetmore, they key on me, they try to key on Heath, they try to key on our big runners,” Coursen said, “but what they don’t understand is that Casey and Dentin and Dakota are just as good as us. Those guys make it really hard to key on me and Heath ... when you have five other guys that can run the ball or catch the ball and move the ball like we can.”
Waverly ends it season with a perfect 13-0 record after last season’s 12-1 championship campaign. The Bulldogs earned their second straight title in dominating fashion, defeated their competition by an average score of 53-18.
“I’d say this feels twice as good,” Coursen said. “Last year, we won, but every time we looked back at it, people would say, ‘Yeah, but you lost to Madison.’ That kept coming back on us.
“This year, we can say we won every game. We came into this game saying that this was going to be a team effort. If we win, we win as a team, and if we lose, we lose as a team. We played together as a team.”