By KATE BAIER • Register Correspondent • October 11, 2008
Behind a balanced offense and a fired-up home crowd, No. 8 Ankeny swept past Indianola 49-21 Friday.The Hawks (6-1) struck quickly with two first-quarter touchdowns - on Tyler Leo's 3-yard run and Dan Behmer's 5-yard quarterback sneak.
"We knew that they had some really good offensive players and their defense was good," Leo said. "We knew we had to get our running game established and then the rest of it would come."Michael Chia put Indianola on the board with a 10-yard touchdown run in the second quarter. But Leo responded with his second touchdown of the night on an 11-yard run.An interception by Andrew Putz at the Hawks' 6-yard line opened the door for another Ankeny scoring drive highlighted by Alec Lewis' 4-yard touchdown run. "We got to make the holes for these backs," said offensive lineman Alex Covington. "Tonight we did that, we executed pretty well, minimized mistakes and got the job done. I felt pretty good about it."Chia opened the second half with an 80-yard touchdown run for the Indians. Ankeny countered with a 32-yard touchdown run by Behmer. Back-to-back touchdowns by Ross Naylor gave Ankeny a 35-point lead.Chia scored his third touchdown with a 65-yard punt return to complete the scoring.
"We had some great plays; our team came to play," Ankeny coach Jerry Pezzetti said.
The Hawks rolled up 597 yards. Leo had 120 yards rushing and Lewis added 104. Behmer threw for 174."That's what our offense is," Behmer said. "Everyone gets a chance to run and all our backs switch off. We don't have one star running back, we have our whole backfield."Chia led the Indians with 204 yards in receptions. The loss put Indianola at 4-3 for the season.
