INWOOD, Iowa | After a three-year hiatus, the Beef Bowl trophy is headed back to Central Lyon/George-Little Rock.
The Lions, behind a stellar performance by junior quarterback Pete Menage, rolled past longtime rival West Lyon 49-14 in the football season opener for both schools here Friday night.
Menage ran for three touchdowns and passed for two more as CL/GL-R won in this long and storied series for the first time since 2011.
West Lyon, the defending Class A state champions, had a 14-game winning streak snapped.
Menage, already in his second season as a starter, racked up 356 total yards, passing for 250 while rushing for a game-high 106 yards on just seven carries. He completed 18 of 27 passes, hooking up with seven different receivers.
“We expected a really great team from West Lyon and that’s what we got,” Menage said. “They played really hard. We just executed the game plan, everything we wanted to do coming in we did. Busting our butts this summer was a huge part of it obviously.”
Central Lyon/George-Little Rock, No. 8 in the Associated Press Class 2A rankings, took advantage of three West Lyon turnovers to forge a 21-7 halftime lead, then retained momentum in the second half.
“We knew they were going to be able to move the football, we just wanted to make some big plays and we did early in the game,” Central Lyon/George-Little Rock Coach Toby Lorenzen said. “On defense, we stopped them a couple times and offensively we thought we had a little better speed than them and we were able to exploit it a little bit.”
Menage had touchdown runs of 13 and 54 and 13 yards. The talented 11th-grader flipped scoring passes of 50 yards to Tom Schilling and 24 to Kalen Eckenrod.
The Lions led 35-14 after three quarters and tacked on a couple of long scoring plays in the fourth.
C.J. Roths returned a punt 65 yards to paydirt and sophomore speedster Mitch Van Beek broke loose for a 53-yard scamper with under a minute to play.
“I told Pete before the game, you’re no longer a little wet behind the ears sophomore, you’re a junior,” Lorenzen said. “You’re battle tested, now go out and prove it. He played above and beyond what we wanted him to do in that first game.”
West Lyon actually scored first, surprising everyone when Dylan Whalen passed 38 yards to Paul Ter Wee with 5:25 left in the first quarter.
The Lions, though, answered on their next series when Menage and Schilling connected for a touchdown from midfield. They took the lead for good on the first of Menage’s three touchdown runs with just over three minutes left before halftime.
West Lyon marched to the Lions’ 16 but Colby McIntire picked off a Whalen pass at the goal line and returned it to the 46. Two plays later, Menage raced in on a 54-yarder with 23.8 seconds left in the half.
Central Lyon/George-Little Rock made it 28-7 on its first possession of the second half. Menage scored on a 16-yard run one play after connecting with David Aeikens on a 53-yard bomb.
West Lyon lost two fumbles and threw an interception before intermission.
“They’re a really good football team, hats off to them,” West Lyon Coach Jay Rozeboom said. “We have to get better, look at tape and improve ourselves. It was a hard-fought game, we had some opportunities in the first half and made some mistakes and they capitalized on them.”
Senior quarterback Whalen led the Wildcats with 93 rushing yards in his first start. Vaughn Moser added 72 on 14 totes as West Lyon rushed for 265 yards.
It was the first of three straight tough non-district foes for Central Lyon/George-Little Rock. The Lions play at Sioux City Bishop Heelan next week and take on Spirit Lake before beginning district play.
Well, we have Sheldon next. Have not played them for a long time. They won their first game easily over a South O Brian team that was very good last year. Sheldon has had some good teams over the years so I will guess they will be tough. Avoid penalities and turnovers and I think we will be fine this week. GO BIG BLUE!!
