Woodward-Granger football thumps Nodaway, XC’s Fleshner wins meet

The Hawks found a couple of hot performances to carry momentum into homecoming week. (Events covered: Sept. 17-23)

Football (3-1)

Last year, the Hawks reversed their fortune against Nodaway Valley with a 46-0 win after starting the season with three losses.

This season, the Hawks rode into Nodaway’s house after a blowout win and rolled with that momentum to a 48-8 victory over the Wolverines (0-4).

With a clean pocket for nearly the whole night, quarterback Talan Fuson cleaned up with three total touchdowns. Not only did he toss two touchdowns to Chandler Drake (105 yards on three receptions) but Fuson also led the team with 88 yards on the ground. That brought him to 13 touchdowns on the year, tied for fourth-most among Class 1A players.

A safety valve for Fuson, running back CJ Petersen caught eight passes in addition to his 75 rushing yards and two touchdowns. With Max Dalton having caught eight balls against Pleasantville, the Hawks are the only 1A team to have two players with eight or more receptions in a single game. And joining in on the fun, Ethan Dunlavey and Oscar Potter each recorded touchdowns.

Defensively, the Hawks continued to flex up front, with six tackles for loss added to their stat sheet. Potter and Kane Mahler-Moreno led the team with 1.5 TFLs, helping the team maintain its top-three rank in that category.

Homecoming on Friday finds the Hawks hosting Ogden (1-3) which W-G defeated 45-0 in 2023.

Volleyball (5-11)

Woodward-Granger volleyball continued an interesting streak this week. With a 2-1 win over West Marshall at Ballard’s tournament on Saturday, the Hawks are now 2-0 in tiebreaker sets this season (both against the Trojans). Going back to 2023, that marks six wins in winner-takes-all sets.

In addition to that clutch win decided by a 15-13 final set, the Hawks defeated West Central Valley 3-1 four days earlier and found a couple of new personal records.

Splitting looks with Anna Weaver (15 assists), Jill Jesse hit a season-high 14 assists, helping six teammates score on four or more kills. That effort was led by Alena Schaack’s 11 successful spikes. And on the other side of the net, blocked four times. Both of those stats were the freshman’s highest totals thus far in her career.

Cross Country

Woodward-Granger found a peak performance on Monday in Prairie City with Eva Fleshner winning her second meet of the season.

With a 20-second lead, Fleshner won with a time of 20 minutes 25 seconds. She previously won at Colfax-Mingo in 19:59 with an 18-second margin from second place.

The Hawk girls as a unit placed seventh overall, and the boys placed fifth of nine teams. Cael Leighton (18th / 19:38) and Jackson Bowlsby (21st / 19:51) had the team’s top times.

This article originally appeared on Perry Chief: Woodward-Granger football thumps Nodaway, XC’s Fleshner wins meet