No. 1 Xavier plays complementary, complete football and rocks ADM, 45-7

CEDAR RAPIDS — Complementary and complete. Supreme and superior.

Top-ranked Cedar Rapids Xavier dominated all three phases and whipped No. 6 Adel ADM, 45-7, in a Class 4A football quarterfinal Friday night at Saints Field.

“The kids were dialed in all week,” Xavier Coach Duane Schulte said. “ADM looked really good on tape.”

Xavier (11-0), meanwhile, looked really, really good on turf. Cash Parks threw for four touchdowns — to four different receivers — and it was apparent after the opening two drives of the game that this could get one-sided.

The final yardage tally: Xavier 408, ADM 195.

As a result, the Saints take their show to the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls. They’ll face No. 4 Newton (10-1) in a 4A semifinal at 7 p.m. next Thursday.

“You know us; we’re just going to try to get first downs, and keep the other team from getting first downs,” Schulte said. “We’ll prepare and play the best that we can.”

Their best has been better than anybody’s else’s.

“If we keep playing tough, hard-nosed football, we’ll get what we earn,” Parks said.

Xavier yielded one first down on its first defensive foray of the game, and forced ADM (9-2) to punt. Once the Saints got the ball, it was seven plays, 61 yards, touchdown, with Carter Hoffmann doing the honors from 4 yards out.

It was 28-0 by halftime.

“We ran the plays in practice, and once we got to the line of scrimmage, I knew, ‘This guy might be open; this guy might not,” said Parks, who completed 11 of 14 passes for 230 yards.

ADM got a couple of first downs on its second possession, then stalled at the Xavier 45.

Xavier sophomore Max Dougherty was the only player to rush the punter, and was the only one necessary to block it.

“I got in the gap, blitzed and got it,” he said. “We were working on that all week.”

Xavier took over at the ADM 14 and scored two plays later on Parks’ first touchdown toss, a 16-yarder to Hoffman, who caught the pass in the left flat and had nobody near him except a convoy of linemen.

Parks followed with a 51-yard scoring strike to Will Forman, then it was a 30-yard TD run by Ty Weiss on an end-around with 1:46 left in the half.

In the third quarter, Parks hooked up with Ryan Kelly for an 11-yard touchdown and a 56-yarder to Dustin Cook.

Schulte had little to nitpick after this one.

“They had one drive, one touchdown,” he said. “We had a dumb penalty to start it (the second of two unsportsmanlike infractions). We’ve got to learn from our mistakes.”

Cedar Rapids Xavier 45, Adel ADM 7

Class 4A Quarterfinal, at Saints Field

TEAM STATISTICS

First downs: ADM 12, CRX 16

Rushes-yards: ADM 30-102, CRX 32-178

Passing yards: ADM 93, CRX 230

Passing: ADM 10-20-1, CRX 11-14-0

Total yards: ADM 195, CRX 408

Fumbles-lost: ADM 1-1, CRX 1-0

Punts-average: ADM 5-34.0, CRX 1-43.0

Penalties-yards: ADM 2-18, CRX 4-35

SCORING SUMMARY

ADM 0 0 7 0 — 7

C.R. Xavier 14 14 14 3 — 45

CRX — Carter Hoffmann 4 run (Owen Vasquez kick)

CRX — Hoffmann 16 pass from Cash Parks (Vasquez kick)

CRX — Will Forman 51 pass from Parks (Vasquez kick)

CRX — Ty Weiss 30 run (Vasquez kick)

CRX — Ryan Kelly 11 pass from Parks (Vasquez kick)

ADM — Hudson Shull 4 run (Colby Simons kick)

CRX — Dustin Cook 56 pass from Parks (Vasquez kick)

CRX — FG Vasquez 44

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

Rushing

ADM — Reed Obstarczyk 17-80, Hudson Shull 10-19, Leyton Gerleman 1-3. Xavier — Carter Hoffmann 15-62, Ty Weiss 2-59, Dustin Cook 5-34, Cash Parks 3-10, Ryan Kelly 1-10, Dawson Doyle 2-4, Calvin Hacke 2-1, Rocco Schmidt 1-(minus 1), Team 1-(minus 1).

Passing

ADM — Shull 10-19-1-93, Daniel Storck 0-1-0-0. Xavier — Parks 11-14-0-230.

Receiving

ADM — Reece Strittmatter 3-41, Obstarczyk 2-13, Reid Kluesner 2-12, Gerleman 2-7, Ethan Uglum 1-20. Xavier — Kelly 3-17, Cook 2-90, A.J. Evans 2-51, Hoffmann 2-18, Will Forman 1-51, Sam Leuck 1-3.

Comments: jeff.linder@thegazette.com