Gallery by Tina Laney
Glen Daniel – Taking to the air, Liberty seemingly found a groove Friday night, trailing Westside just 27-22 with 9:35 to go in the third quarter.
The aerial attack was grounded shortly after.
Liberty’s following four drives ended with interceptions and the Renegades took advantage, scoring touchdowns off all four turnovers in a 61-22 victory at Liberty.
Coltin Lester, who intercepted two of those passes, hauled in a three touchdown passes in the victory as one of the splashy playmakers Westside QB Kadien Vance relied on throughout the evening. Vance accounted for 250 yards passing and five passing touchdowns, adding two more scores with his legs.
Westside (4-0) jumped out to a 21-6 lead early in the second quarter but the hosts leaned on the arm of QB Chase Shea as the game went on and he responded, connecting on 7-of-11 pass attempts for 69 yards and a score in the first half. His rushing score early in the third cut the deficit to five before Westside slammed the door.
“That was a coaching issue,” Westside head coach Justin Cogar said. “That’s something that we didn’t do a great job of this week, working on our pass coverage. That’s something we’ve been very strong in for, really, since I’ve been here, and this year, our athletes or defensive backs do really good job. That’s my fault. We didn’t work on it more this week. But I mean, what we saw on film, was they were run-heavy, and that’s what I thought that they did best. And tonight, they did a good job of airing it out. And we just couldn’t make plays in the first half. We bumped another safety back, and we were able to make some plays.”
The switch to passing was intentional for Liberty. After running the ball on their first 13 plays, the Raiders took to the air on 11 of their final 14 plays of the first half.
“They showed us cover 1 or cover 3 in all films we watched but I told my kids expect cover 0,” Liberty head coach Mark Workman said. “Expect it, because we’re a dominant run team. They’re gonna keep more people in the box. So we worked some on cover 0 and we feel we got some athletes at the receivers Riley (Marty) and Kris (Bowman) and they gave us a couple early ones in cover zero that we took advantage of, then they started playing cover 1 and we just couldn’t get blocks up front that we needed.”
Points proved necessary early for the hosts.
Westside scored touchdowns on four of its first five drives, three on touchdown passes from Vance and one on the ground via his legs.
Liberty responded quickly to the first with a 40-yard rushing score from Isaac Williams just five minutes into the game but struggled until Shea engineered a 14-play 80-yard drive late in the second quarter, going 7-for-9 on the drive to make it a 21-14 game.
Trailing 27-14 out of the break, he picked up where he left off before the intermission, connecting with Riley Marty for gains of 24 and 13 yards, setting up his own three-yard rushing score.
The Raiders forced a Westside punt and had a chance to take the lead but penalties led to an unraveling.
A 32-yard screen pass on second-and-23 was wiped out by a penalty and on the next play Shea was picked by Brayden Bishop.
The Renegades put their foot on the gas and never relented.
Freshman Noah Ellis extended the lead to two scores with a four yards rush and three of Shea’s next five passes found the mitts of Westside defensive backs. Vance made each one hurt, connecting with Lester on touchdown passes of 1 and 16 yards, capping his night with a 5-yard scoring plunge in the fourth quarter.
The performance put Vance over 1,000 yards passing on the season.
“That’s a good thing about having a quarterback that plays at his level,” Cogar said. “When a play breaks down, he’s got the ability to make something special happen. It makes my job easier, because when you got him when you got (Kyler Kenneda), anything can happen. And those guys have great chemistry. Kadien always knows where Kyler is at, and Kyler knows how to move and find open spaces. So that really makes our offense what it is.”
Liberty (2-4) travels to Class AAA Shady Spring next week while Westside will welcome Independence in the most meaningful football game for the program in a decade.
Email tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
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