maly, too: Al On a Roll

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Al On a Roll

My neighbor Al, the health nut, was ringing my doorbell at 6:30 this morning, asking for a cup of Dark Roast and raving about what he saw last night at Valley Stadium.

"I haven't lived in West Des Moines all that long," Al said, "so I didn't get to see the Valley football teams coached by Lee Crawford. "All I know is that Gary Swenson is one hell of a coach, and this 2013 team of his has turned into one hell of a ballclub."

"Hey, Al, I've been telling you that for the last two or three weeks," I said. "This team has made gigantic strides since the first couple of games. These guys are playing as well, if not better, right now than any class 4-A team in the state."

Valley shellacked Sioux City East, 49-0, last night for its eighth straight victory.

"I just hope the paper doesn't get on 'em again for piling up the score," Al said.

"Don't worry about it, Al," I answered. "Adair-Casey ran up 73 points on Twin Cedars of Bussey last night in the 8-player playoffs, so let the paper accuse them of pouring it on."

"You bet," Al commented. "It's just a good thing those people in the editorial department at the paper haven't seen the new auditorium they're in the process of building at Valley now. They tell me it's going to be better than the Des Moines Civic Center. That'll really piss off those Valley haters at the paper. They're no doubt already mad and jealous that Valley won the state cheerleading championship last week, and now the football team keeps trouncing its opponents."

"There wasn't any paper in the deli at Hy-Vee this morning, so I couldn't read what they wrote about the game," Al said. "Mechanical problems in the press room, I suppose, because of the playoffs. But I had my laptop with me, and called up the Sioux City Journal's story on the game. The Journal wrote like Valley is sensational."

"Well, they're experts on suburban Des Moines football up there in Sioux City," I told Al. "Lots of smart folks up there."

Al told me I should read the Journal's story, which I did. And here it is:

A longtime observer of Valley High School football made the comment Monday that he hadn't seen a Tiger team play as well as the current squad has the last several games.

It is hard to dispute that fact after No. 6 Valley made short work of Sioux City East, cruising to a 49-0 victory at Valley Stadium in the second round of the Iowa class 4-A playoffs.
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Simply put, East couldn't match up physically with the powerful Tigers, who won their eighth straight game and advanced to the quarterfinal round Friday night.

Valley scored on five of its first half possessions and returned an interception for a touchdown before halftime. Running behind a line that opened up gaping holes, senior Tyus Mason gained 148 yards in the first half.

Senior quarterback Connor LaGrone completed all six of his passes, three of those for touchdowns before most of the Valley starters took the entire second half off.

“I thought we were real efficient in the first half,” Valley coach Gary Swenson said. “We don't ask our quarterback to throw it 50 times, that's not us, but his completion percentage is up around 70 percent so he's very efficient. He makes good decisions, he knows where to put the ball and his accuracy has improved.”

Valley (9-2) has now won eight in a row since dropping two of its first three games.

“Losing to Dowling and Southeast Polk, which are very good football teams, we never really panicked,” Swenson said. “Our quarterback play has gotten better, our offensive line has improved and we've got a game-changer at tailback who we think is as good as anybody in the state.”

Mason, a 165-pound senior, carried 11 times – all in the first half . He scored on a 26-yard run on the fifth play of the game and on the Tigers' second series turned a swing pass into an 80-yard score.

Adam Harris returned an interception 35 yards for a touchdown while LaGrone flipped scoring passes to Sam Hartman and Dominique Dafney and fullback Drew Gray plunged in from the 3 before the first half ended with Valley ahead 42-0.

“I said three weeks ago that they are state championship good,” East coach Bob Goodvin said. “We just don't match up on the line of scrimmage at all with them. We tried to move our guys around on defense, we tried to blitz, bring people in more gaps and Mason made our guys miss. He's good.”

Valley's starting offensive line averaged 257 pounds from tackle to tackle and the backups listed on its two-deep (tackle-to-tackle) averaged 267 pounds.

East showed some life early, marching from its own 28 to the Valley 35 on its first possession. A costly holding penalty, however, aborted that drive. Tristen Yap tossed a 25-yarder to Austin Ahrendt on the Black Raiders' second series to the Valley 27, but two plays later was intercepted in the end zone.

East's running game was ground to a halt with only two yards on 22 tries. Yap completed 13 of 26 passes for 137 yards.

“We came out and threw the ball fairly well early, we had a holding call early on that killed us,” Goodvin said. “And when you don't match up on the line of scrimmage you're in for a long night.”

The clock ran continuously from the start of the second half on and couldn't have arrived at zeroes fast enough for East, which closed its season at 7-4.

“That's the third year in a row we've lost to either Ankeny or Valley,” Goodvin said. “It's hard for a 4-A team to beat these guys, other than themselves.

“I think considering all the adversity we've been through with all the injuries --we lost out 10th starter tonight -- and we went 6-3 and won a playoff game, that's a hell of an accomplishment for our kids and coaching staff.”

Swenson, the Sioux City Journal's Siouxland Coach of the Year in 1994 after he guided Spencer to the Class 3A state title, has his Valley squad in a quarterfinal against unbeaten third-ranked Ames.

East 0 0 0 0 – 0
Valley 13 29 7 0 – 49

First Quarter

Valley: Tyus Mason 26 run (Britton Hiskey kick) 6:38
Valley: Mason 80 pass from Connor LaGrone (kick failed) 5:09

Second Quarter

Valley: Adam Harris 35 interception return (Hiskey kick) 11:53
Valley: Sam Hartman 28 pass from LaGrone (Hiskey kick) 9:23
Valley: Drew Gray 3 run (Gray pass from LaGrone) 3:44
Valley: Dominique Dafney 22 pass from LaGrone (Hiskey kick) :06

Third Quarter

Valley: Gray 5 run (Hiskey kick) 1:35

TEAM STATISTICS

East Valley
First downs 7 18
Rushes-yards 22-2 37-271
Passing yards 137 160
Passes 13-26-3 7-8-0
Total plays-yards 48-139 45-431
Punts-avg. 6-37.3 2.37.5
Fumbles-lost 1-0 1-1
Penalties-yards 6-55 4-35

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING: East – Ronald Carter 9-18, Tristen Yap 9-(-8), Ronald Nash 4-(-8). Valley – Tyus Mason 11-148, Trevor Bell 8-86, Drew Gray 6-28, Turner Scott 5-14, Austin Turner 1-4, Taylen Alexander 2-0, Connor LaGrone 3-(-9).
PASSING: East – Tristen Yap 13-26-3—137. Valley – Connor LaGrone 6-6-0—154, Taylen Alexander 1-2-0—6.
RECEIVING: East – Ronald Nash 7-48, Austin Ahrendt 4-51, Alex Stueve 1-27, Ronald Carter 1-1. Valley – Dominique Dafney 2-31, Tyus Mason 1-80, Sam Hartman 1-28, Anthony Holmes 2-15, Carlo Marble 1-18.

[This story was written by Barry Poe of the Sioux City Journal, with contributions from Ron Maly's neighbor Al, the Health Nut].

JOLTIN' JOE GOT IT STARTED

When Ron Maly was a kid in Cedar Rapids, he wanted to enter an essay contest, and he did. He wrote about Joe DiMaggio of the New York Yankees being his favorite baseball player. For finishing second in the contest, Ron won a Louisville Slugger baseball bat autographed by DiMaggio. Ron later wanted to be the first person in his family to attend college, and he was. He earned a degree in political science from the University of Iowa, and did what all political science majors do. He became a sportswriter. He had, after all, covered high school football, basketball and baseball games for the Cedar Rapids Gazette while he worked parttime during his university days. Ron wanted to sit in the press box and write about an Iowa-Minnesota football game, and he did. It happened while he was the sports editor at the Albert Lea [Minn.] Tribune, and the game was at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. Ron wanted to cover a World Series, and he did. Also when he was working for the Albert Lea newspaper. Ron wanted to cover Rose Bowls, Sugar Bowls, Orange Bowls, Cotton Bowls, Holiday Bowls, a Freedom Bowl, a Sun Bowl, a Super Bowl and NCAA basketball tournaments, and he did those things after he moved to Des Moines. Ron was a four-time sportswriter of the Year in the state of Iowa [the years were 1977, 1978, 1994 and 1996]. In 2006, he was named a charter member of the University of Iowa's media Wall of Fame in the Kinnick Stadium press box. A photo of the plaque that's displayed in the press box is displayed above this story. Following Ron's retirement from the newspaper business, a publisher asked him if he wanted to write a book about the rich football tradition at the University of Iowa, and he did. The hardback version of "Tales from the Iowa Sidelines" was a best-seller, and so was the revised, softback version. Now he's been asked by his publisher to update the book for a second time. He's in the process of doing that at the present time. Ron considers being asked to update a best-selling book for the second time to be the supreme compliment, considering the Hawkeyes won just four games in the 2012 season. When Ron isn't working on books, he's busy traveling and spending time with his family. Indeed, he attends the athletic, theatrical and musical [both vocal and instrumental] events in which his six grandchildren participate. He also writes about anything that interests him for his many websites. Every chance he gets, Ron proudly wears his America Needs Farmers T-shirt.

The Hawkeyes' Rich Football Tradition, Revisited

I mentioned a while back that I was in the process of updating my Tales from the Iowa Sidelines book. Updating it for the second time. The original hardback edition of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines [pictured at the right] was published in 2003, during the 10-3 season, when coach Kirk Ferentz and his Iowa football team had a 10-3 record that included a 37-17 victory over 15th-ranked Florida in the Outback Bowl and after the Hawkeyes went 11-2 in 2002. That book was a best-seller, so the publishers came to me again in 2005, a season that finished with a breathtaking 30-25 victory over No. 11 Louisiana State in the Capital One Bowl on New Year's Day, 2005. Because buyers had cleaned out the the shelves in the bookstores, the publishers wanted to know if I'd do an updated version of the book. I agreed, The revised, soft-cover edition [pictured at the left] was published in 2005. Warren Holloway, who teamed with quarterback Drew Tate on a miraculous 56-yard touchdown pass to win the Capital One Bowl, was featured on the cover. That book, too, turned into a best-seller, So I had reason to feel very good about my years as a published author. It's not every day that a the original version is a best-seller, and so is the updated version. Then, imagine my surprise when I received an e-mail from a senior editor at the publishing company last fall, wanting wanted to know if I was interested in doing a second updated version of the book. It came at a time when things weren't going well for the Hawkeyes in the 2012 season. They lost their last six games and finished with a 4-8 record. Frankly, the thought of doing a revised edition of the book during a 4-8 season seemed to be a stretch. "Maybe producing a revised edition in a year or two would be a better idea," I told the publishers. "We'd like to do it now," I was told. "Let me think about it," I said. After a few days of thought, I accepted the idea. I talked myself into the idea that this was the supreme compliment--being asked to do a second book update during a 4-8 season showed strong confidence by the publishers in me and in the Hawkeyes' football program. So I got back into the business of interviewing players and coaches again, going to postgame press conferences, weekly press conferences and a scrimmage in West Des Moines. After a press conference in Iowa City, I did a one-on-one interview with coach Kirk Ferentz, and mentioned to him that I was in the process of doing a revised edition of my two best-selling books. I congratulated him on the excellent things he had done for Iowa's football program--all of which contributed to the success of my books. "I think Coach Fry had more to do with it," he told me, bringing up the name of Hayden Fry, his one-time boss at Iowa and a man who brought Iowa's football program back from the dead in the 20th century. That's modest Kirk Ferentz for you. Even though the 2012 season wasn't something Hawkeye coaches, players and fans will recall with any special feeling, Ferentz has a 14-year record of 100-74 at Iowa that includes two 11-victory seasons [2002 smd 2009], two 10-victory seasons [2003 and 2004], plus he's been the Big Ten coach of year in 2002, 2004 and 2009, and national coach of the year in 2002. Indeed, Ferentz has done some wonderful things at Iowa City, and I fully expect his success to continue. I've concluded my writing for the second update of Tales from the Iowa Sidelines, and the senior editor has furnished me with an early look at the book. Not only are the Kirk Ferentz years included in the updated version, but so is the stuff I previously wrote about Howard Jones, Dr. Eddie Anderson, Heisman Trophy winner Nile Kinnick and the 1939 Hawkeye Ironmen, Ronald Reagan, Ozzie Simmons, Ossie Solem, Randy Duncan, Alex Karras and lots of other legends from Iowa's rich football history. I expect the book to be in stores soon. I hope you like it.