(Story by Stephen McDaniel)
With playoff football looming in the background, Ankeny Centennial needed to come out on its home turf and take care of business before it worried about the postseason.
And the Jaguars did just that.
Centennial had the running clock going in the second half as the Jaguars earned their spot in the Class 5A playoffs with a 49-7 rout over Sioux City North Friday on Senior Night at Ankeny Stadium.
“We got a lot of people some touches, we got different people getting touchdowns, and I was very pleased with how we executed at times,” said Centennial co-head coach Ryan Pezzetti. “To end the season like this and head to the playoffs, playing our best football and getting healthy at the right time is something for our kids to look forward to.”
It took just three snaps of the football for things to get turned on their head as the Centennial defense set the tone for the night.
North (1-8) took a penalty on the first snap, threw an incompletion on the second and the third resulted in a Rowan Doak scoop-and-score touchdown after the junior picked up an incomplete backwards pass and found the end zone just seconds into the game.
That was just the start of a dominant defensive showing from the Jaguars, who held North scoreless most of the way until a late fourth-quarter touchdown against Centennial’s backup unit.
Doak, Brandon Bogseth and Houston Luce shut down the Stars’ second drive after all three recorded sacks. Jackson Bailey made the next drive even shorter when the senior intercepted quarterback Jackson Mogensen following a bad snap and a scramble.
By the end of the first half, the Centennial defense had forced three turnovers and three punts–all of which were responded to accordingly by the Jaguar offense led by sophomore quarterback Brekken Miller and senior running back JJ Morgan.
“You go back and look at the Southeast Polk game and we start things off with different starters all over the field, new faces and just some inconsistencies,” Pezzetti said. “We’ve grown into a team and grown into a team that I feel we can be competitive and go on a run.”
Despite a low-yardage total on the night by Morgan’s standards with just 66 yards rushing and 60 yards receiving, he recorded three touchdowns in his last game on his home field.
Morgan flew around the corner for a 19-yard rushing touchdown on the offense’s first drive before taking a third-and-long pass from Miller for a 60-yard receiving touchdown on the following drive. He got the second half started with a 41-yard rushing touchdown.
Miller, meanwhile, completed 8-of-10 passes for 158 yards and three touchdowns. He found sophomore Max Schmitz for an 8-yard touchdown in the second quarter and got the running clock started the following drive by hitting Cameron Meiners on a deep shot for a 38-yard touchdown.
“(The game) went great, and it went a little bit better than we expected,” Morgan said. “All week during practices our coaches were talking about how (Sioux City North) is going to come for our heads. We just went out there and played, executed and that’s what the results show.”
There were only two offensive drives that didn’t result in touchdowns for the Jaguars. Those came on the last drive before going into halftime and when they took a knee on North’s 5-yard line to close out the game.
It was a great way for the Centennial seniors to go out in their final home game, and plenty of seniors made big impacts in the win.
Morgan found the end zone three times, Meiners scored a touchdown on his lone reception, and Bailey recorded the team’s only interception. Bogseth racked up 2.5 sacks, Luce had 1.5 sacks, and Kade Muehring and Kane Brooks each added one.
“It meant pretty much everything to me and a lot of my friends,” Morgan said. “My older brother came through this field and a lot of people came through Centennial that I looked up to. So being able to play my last high school home game possibly on this field really stuck with me.”
Now the Jaguars turn their attention to the playoffs, where they’ll enter as an underdog after finishing the season with a 5-4 record.
With their 33-15 head-to-head win over Indianola, the Jaguars were able to move up a spot to the No. 14 seed and it will send them on the road to No. 3 Johnston (7-2) on Friday to open up the playoffs. Indianola will go on the road to face Waukee Northwest, which held the top ranking for most of the season.
The winner of the game at Johnston would move on to play the winner of Valley (7-2) and Cedar Rapids Prairie (6-3) in the quarterfinals on Nov. 7.
‘“We’re extremely confident,” Pezzetti said. “I thought we played really well against (top-ranked) Dowling Catholic, and I don’t think the final score indicated the type of game it was. They’re a good football team, and to do what we did tonight is pleasing. But moving forward, whoever we play is going to be a quality team and we’re going to have to have a great week (of practice).”
