No. 4 Mustangs bring heavy pressure

FORT MADISON – Fort Madison will take on the No. 4 team in the state in Class 3A Friday a little banged up.
The Hounds will be without junior Brody Cashman who’s sidelined with an ACL injury, and now senior wideout Henry Wiseman is done with an ACL injury.
The Hounds take on Class 3A No. 4 Mt. Vernon on Friday night on Youel Field at Fort Madison High School down the two Bloodhounds. They are still limiting senior Teague Smith to defense only as he suffered a knee injury during wrestling season last winter.
“I don’t know. I’ve spent a lot of time researching that for (Athletic Enhancement). I even had my students do research on it. That’s 150 kids looking into what’s happening,” said Head Coach Derek Doherty.
“I just don’t know why this is happening to those boys. You can’t replace a player like Henry Wiseman. You can’t replace any of them. It’s heartbreaking.
“But he was back out there at practice talking with the kids. That’s just the kind of kid he is.”
Fort Madison has been snake bit by knee injuries in the past couple years. They lost Xander Wellman last year as a senior when he blew out his knee playing soccer for the Hounds two seasons ago as a junior. Jacob Pothitakis had the same injury for the Bloodhound soccer team the same year about two weeks before Wellman.
The Bloodhounds are 4-2 on the year with three games left. They are 1-1 in district play and are currently ranked 20^th in the Class 3A Power Rankings. Playing in one of the toughest districts in Class 3A could have playoff implications even with a loss on Friday.
Doherty said his team is 0-0 and looking to be 1-0. That’s the mantra of the Hounds all year. They got that done last week with a last-drive win over Keokuk in the annual county rivalry.
Mt. Vernon comes in with an efficient offense led by Joey Rhomberg who’s completed 62% of his passes for just about 1,300 yards and 12 TDs against three INTs. Cooper and Jackson Hird have combined for about 600 yards on the ground and three scores. And the Mustangs' Evan Brace is dangerous downfield with 528 yards and five scores.
With all the potency, it may be the defense that is more to be feared. The Mustangs come into the game with 34 sacks on the year. They are not afraid to blitz from both ends and up the middle and keep quarterbacks off balance.
That much pressure does make teams a bit susceptible to the run and that’s how Mt. Vernon suffered their only loss of the year. The Mustangs gave up 28 points in the second quarter to Solon which was too much to overcome, but the telling stat was the 218 yards and three TDs they gave up to Solon sophomore Conlan Poynton.
Doherty said that kind of pressure up front will make it critical for the line to do their jobs.
“At the end of the day, it's our 11 vs. their 11. We just have to do our jobs. But what people aren’t seeing is that our offensive is getting better and better by the week,” he said.
That was evidenced on the last drive of the game last week when the offensive line and wideouts opened a huge hole for quarterback Marcus Guzman to rip off an 18-yard run on 4^th and 7 to set up the Bloodhounds' game winning score.
Wiseman was lost for the season on that drive.
Guzman’s thrown for 1,064 yards and eight scores, but has also thrown eight picks. He’s also rushed for 263 yards and seven scores.
Guzman’s completed passes to eight different receivers this year and he’ll have some different faces out there as Noah Swigart, Henry Morris, and Caleb Bolander will rotate in with Cade Denning and Leif Boeding as wideouts. Senior Hayden Segoviano has also racked up some receptions out of the backfield. He has 244 yards but has yet to find the endzone. Boeding has 220 yards and one score.