Muscatine shuts down North
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By Sean Moeller | Friday, October 20, 2006 |
Nick Loomis/QUAD-CITY TIMES Davenport North running back Blake White tries to find a hole Thursday against Muscatine at Brady Street Stadium.
Muscatine junior quarterback Jon Phillips’ appearance is one of an athlete who should have been toeing the line at the district cross country meet Thursday afternoon rather than standing behind center against Davenport North at Brady Street Stadium.
He is 151 pounds and against the Wildcats in the cold weather, his arm was blazing hot.
He completed 17 of 23 passes —most of which came in the first half — and led the offense to a 54-21 Mississippi Athletic Conference victory with four touchdown passes and 323 passing yards.
“He’s so efficient,” Muscatine coach Brian Sauser said of a quarterback forced into the starting role when an offseason injury knocked 2005 starter Nick Williams out of the picture. “You never think about him making all these passes. He does it every week. We didn’t expect him to be in this position.”
Phillips found a favorite target in Tucker Sulzberger, serving up three touchdown passes to him (of 5, 15 and 30 yards) and also found Alex Reimers for a 60-yard second-quarter score.
Sulzberger hooked up with Phillips for the last time with 6:22 to play in the third quarter and finished the evening with a career-first of four TDs — a 2-yard plunge in the second was his only taste of the endzone not from the air.
He ended the night with six catches and 94 yards.
“We just try to get the balls to the open guys,” said Phillips about an offense that looked effortless against the Wildcats (2-6). “I expect (the consistency) cause the guys get open and I just have to throw it in there. There are so many options.”
Muscatine (6-2) built a 40-7 halftime lead and for brief periods of time in the second half, it triggered the running clock of the mercy rule, but the Wildcats found some success against the Muskies’ reserves to pad the lead and an offense that was only able to manage 25 yards in the first half.
Running back Jason White had 1 yard rushing on five carries in the opening 24 minutes, but finished the game with 117 yards on the ground. Blake White ended the game with 69, but the yards were hollow and couldn’t subtract from what the Muskies already had accomplished.
The win sets Muscatine up for a final game of the regular season clash with Davenport Assumption, with a playoff spot at stake.
“This was a huge step for us,” Sulzberger said. “We had to get through this and we had to play good football.”
Sauser said keeping his players from getting ahead of themselves wasn’t difficult.
“It’s been a little motto of ours since the beginning of the season. You’re only given nine guaranteed nights of football. We’re certainly not going to let one night slip by for all the work we put in,” he said. “Their goal’s not to go 6-3. It’s to get to the playoffs. The whole week we’ve been trying to keep the kids focused. Now, we finally get to talk about Assumption.”
Sean Moeller can be contacted at (563) 383-2288 or at smoeller@qctimes.com.
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