Photo Courtesy of Columbus CSD Social Media
It was indeed a happy homecoming for the Columbus Wildcat football team on Friday night, as they ran all over district rival Highland in a 48-14 trouncing in the Area Game of the Week. Columbus got the ball rolling right away, finding the end zone on a 11-play 95-yard drive to give themselves an early 6-0 advantage. After forcing the Huskies to punt, the offense went back to work, scoring on a three-play 25-yard drive to extend the lead to 13-0. After a promising Huskie drive was stalled out by penalties, Columbus reassumed the football, and scored their third touchdown in as many drives on a five-play drive totaling 56 yards to move ahead 20-0 after the first 12 minutes. The big blue blitz wouldn’t stop at three, though, as Columbus kept hammering away at Highland, tightening their grip on the game in the process. The ‘Cats scored twice more to end the second frame at 34-0, including a score with five seconds remaining in the first half. The running clock was enacted right out of the locker rooms as safety Lamar Ceant intercepted a Sage Hartley-Norman pass and made a house call. That would end up being the only score of the third quarter for Columbus, as Highland finally found the end zone in their second drive of half number two off of a Hartley-Norman 55-yard run on fourth and one. Both sides would trade scores before all was said and done.
Unofficially, Columbus won the yardage contest 380-189, including a victory in rushing yards 311-128. Wildcat quarterback Trevor Phillips finished with an efficient 9/10 mark, throwing for 69 yards and three touchdowns all to different receivers. Angel Venzor was one of those targets, finishing his night with 26 receiving yards and the score. Riley Kaalberg ended his final homecoming game with 22 carries for 244 yards, scoring twice. Kaalberg had 12 carries of at least 10 yards. Lamar Ceant patrolled the skies all night long for Columbus, coming up with two picks including his pick-six. Highland was led by Logan McFarland’s 2/5 night for 31 yards. Sage Hartley-Norman also provided 30 yards in the passing game, and was the leading rusher, racking up 107 yards on eight carries and a score. Freshman Liam Roberts impressed many a Highland fan with his 19-yard touchdown reception with less than a minute remaining, and ended his night with three more receptions that in all totaled 38 yards and the TD.
Columbus Head Coach Dave Lekwa joined KCII Sports postgame to talk about his team’s dominating 48-14 victory over Highland. “Really proud of how we played in the first half and continued to battle series after series. The last couple of weeks we’ve hit a wall and we haven’t been able to continue, so I’m proud of them in that respect,” Lekwa said.
Highland Head Coach Cory Quail also joined KCII Sports postgame to discuss his team’s tough loss on the road. “We didn’t do what we’ve normally done the last few weeks here. It just got us out of our game a bit. We just got out of our form and once that happened, good teams like CJ are going to take advantage of things like that,” Quail said.
With the win, Columbus moves to 2-3 overall and 2-2 in district play ahead of a road matchup in Letts against Louisa-Muscatine next Friday. The loss moves Highland to 2-3 overall and 1-3 in district play ahead of a senior night matchup with Pekin next week. The KCII Area Game of the Week will make its return to Lone Tree next Friday night for another homecoming matchup featuring the Calamus-Wheatland Warriors and the home Lions.