Turnovers prove costly for Rams in loss

Glenwood’s Casey Godbout rumbles through a Council BLuffs Lewis Central defender on a second quarter reception. Godbout hauled in five passes for a team-high 71 yards in the Rams’ 49-21 loss to the Titans.
A week after surviving four turnovers in victory over Denison, Glenwood wasn’t quite so lucky against Class 4A No 8 Lewis Central Friday in Council Bluffs.
The No. 10 ranked Rams turned it over five times - three of them coming in the second quarter - the Titans turned into four touchdowns in a 49-21 victory in District 6 play.
“You can’t give a good team that many turnovers,” said Glenwood coach Cory Faust after the game. “Credit them, they forced some of those. It’s disappointing for us the outcome wasn’t better but there’s no time to feel sorry for ourselves. We have to look at the film and get better and come back and play next week.”
The game between two top 10 4A teams in a district battle of rivals in front of a capacity crowd had all the makings of a classic. At least for a little over a quarter of play it looked like it might play out that way.
After the Titans took an early 7-0 lead, the Rams knotted the score on its second drive of the game when Kayden Anderson hooked up with Payton Longmeyer for a touchdown toss that tied it at 7-7.
The score would remain deadlocked into the second quarter when the Ram defense held on a third-and-six that forced a Titan field goal attempt. LC would miss the kick, however, and the momentum appeared to be with the Rams as they notched a pair of first downs on the ensuing drive. But that all changed when the Titans’ Curtis Witte stepped in front of an Anderson pass and returned it the Glenwood 47. Five plays later, quarterback Brady Hetzel connected with Brody Pattan for an 18-yard TD toss.
The Titans would intercept Anderson on the ensuing possession and turn that into a one-play TD drive and then scoop up a fumble on the next possession after that to set up a six play, 24-yard TD drive to make the score 28-7.
All three of the Titans’ touchdown drives came in just a little over five minutes.
Glenwood never seemed to recover offensively. They would go into the half down 21.
Lewis Central took the opening kick-off of the second half and added to their lead. Hetzel engineered an 85-yard, five play drive to make the score 35-7 with just under nine minutes to go in the third quarter.
The Titans scored touchdowns on five of their first seven possessions of the game with one of the two non-scoring drives ending with a missed field and the other at the Rams’ 7-yard line as time expired in the first half.
Lewis Central’s balance offense – 304 yards passing, 234 rushing – makes them tough to prepare for. The turnover-aided field position only helped.
“When you give them short fields early and then so many plays with their size advantage, they wore us down a little bit,” Faust said. “They probably have a little better depth than us right now. We can come back, and we can play a lot better football than we did tonight. There were a lot of positives we can draw from the game. We can do that, and we can get better.”
The Rams did put together a nice 10-play, 70-yard drive mid-way through the third quarter capped by Trent Patton’s 13-yard TD run but they never threatened again offensively. On defense, Jack Johnson’s interception of Hetzel and 16-yard return for a touchdown complete the Rams’ scoring.
Faust admits the turnovers were the difference for his team. And they will have his attention at practice moving forward.
“We’re going to look at ball security and see where they (turnovers) are coming from, if they’re interceptions are we not putting our guys in good situations where they know what to do with the ball,” he said. “How can we simulate the situations we’re seeing in games in practice better. We’ll look at all of it. It’s a case-by-case basis.”
Glenwood finished with 280 total yards. Anderson complete 20-of-36 passes for 175 yards and a TD. His 20 completions were a Ram single game record. Kellen Scott paced the rushing attack with 59 yards on eight carries while also wrapping up 10 tackles on defense.
The Rams are back in action Friday at Winterset (2-3). Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.
G 07 00 14 00 21
LC 07 21 14 07 49