There are a lot of tried-and-true alarm clocks that can wake you up after a nap.
For the No. 4 Mount Vernon football team, an 84-yard touchdown pass from Center Point-Urbana’s Brennen Merkle to Kinnick Covington at the end of the first quarter Friday, Oct. 3, did the trick.
The Mustangs scored the next 34 points and ended up winning, 34-14, on Homecoming night at the Martha Parsons Activities Complex.
“CPU came in ready to play and really tested us at the beginning of the game,” Mount Vernon Coach Brad Meester said. “We’ve just got to play a cleaner game than we did, with missed assignments and had too many penalties. We killed ourselves.”
Mount Vernon senior quarterback Kellen Haverback really aired it out, throwing for 370 yards on 31-of-49 passing. He had five passing touchdowns and one interception.
Holden Hlavacek caught nine passes for 150 yards and three touchdowns. Michael Ryan caught 11 passes for 110 yards and one score.
Jakob Yock had a receiving touchdown to go with his 95 rushing yards on 13 carries.
“He filled into the role,” Meester said of Yock. “He is running the ball really well.”
Mount Vernon (5-1, 2-0 3A-3) had some ups and downs on defense. The Mustangs had seven sacks, including two each for senior Caleb Keegan and Leuie Korte II. Junior Andrew Dix had a fumble recovery.
Merkle finished with 109 passing yards on 3-of-9 passing for CPU (1-5, 0-2), but AJ Maloney ran for 86 yards on just four carries and Riley Haney had 99 rushing yards on 17 carries.
“They caught us with a double reverse,” Meester said. “We’ve got to be better at assignment football. Some mental errors got to us.
“We did a great job for most of the time, but they just caught us a couple of times.”
Next up is a trip to Central DeWitt (4-2, 0-2) this Friday, Oct. 10. The Mustangs close the regular season with their toughest district games, Dubuque Wahlert (4-2, 2-0) at home Oct. 17, and at Davenport Assumption (4-2, 2-0) on Oct. 24.
“Central DeWitt gave Assumption and Wahlert a run … within a score in both of those games; so, we have three good tests ahead of us,” Meester said. “The playoffs start this week for us. Three huge games to get ready for the postseason.”
Central DeWitt lost to Assumption 35-31 and to Wahlert 17-12 the past two weeks after a 4-0 start.
