FOOTBALL: Blue Devils beat Wolverines in season curtain call

MARTENSDALE — If you take away a wacky first quarter in last Friday’s Nodaway Valley/O football at Martensdale-St. Marys, the game would have been about how you thought it would have been.

The Blue Devils instead used a 24-point first quarter to secure a 44-14 win over the Wolverines in Week 8. The game was the last one of the 2025 season as the Wolverines will not play an optional Week 9 game. They finish the season 1-7 overall and 1-5 in Class A, District 7.

Wolverine head coach Jack West said he was proud of how his team fought back in the first half, whittling the Blue Devils’ lead from 24-0 to 24-14 by halftime.

“I’m really proud of how we fought back and ran our two-minute offense at the end of the first half. We had a lot of momentum going into the second half,” he said. “I think that those minutes in the second quarter were some of our better football moments that we’ve played this year.”

The night was marred slightly by poor weather across southern Iowa. A line of rain showers and lightning marched across the state and hit the Wolverines’ game a few plays into the first quarter.

“Before the lightning delay, I felt like the game started like a repeat of Southwest Valley. The delay gave us a chance to reset and talk about what things went wrong. We had a couple of poor drives after the delay, but in the second quarter it was good for us,” West said. “Overall, the delay gave us a second to catch our breath.”

The Blue Devils scored the first of their four first-quarter touchdowns with 8:21 left in the first quarter. A two-yard pass to Trent Jellison from Cooper Hamilton gave MStM a 6-0 advantage, then the delay hit.

After the delay, the Blue Devils added three more touchdown passes. Hamilton found Brady Baker on a 24-yard pass and Ira Hawk on a 12-yard pass. Backup QB Avery White made an eight-yard pass to Jellison.

The Blue Devils couldn’t extend their lead after a combo of missed or blocked PATs and failed two-point conversions despite leading 24-0 after the first quarter.

NV/OM made things very interesting at the end of the first half, scoring both of their touchdowns in the final four minutes on back-to-back drives, which cut the Blue Devils’ lead to 24-14 at halftime.

The first score came on an 18-yard pass from quarterback Titan Foster to Keyin Steeve. The score was Steeve’s second touchdown catch of the season. A Caleb Christensen two-point conversion run set the score at 24-8 with 3:39 left in the half.

On the last play of the first half, Foster connected on a five-yard touchdown pass to Caleb Christensen. The score was also Christensen’s second touchdown catch of the season. A two-point conversion run failed.

Martensdale-St. Marys scored the only points of the second half, extending the lead to 38-14 after the third quarter with a pair of touchdowns. The last points came late in the game on a 22-yard interception return for a touchdown by Baker to push the score to 44-14.

NV/OM had 197 yards of total offense in the game with 147 passing and 50 rushing yards. Foster turned in his third game of the year with at least 100 yards passing. A week after having his fewest passing yards against the Mount Ayr “no fly zone” defense, Foster turned in his best passing yard total of the season. Foster completed nine passes and had two touchdown passes with three interceptions.

Caleb Christensen rushed for a team-high 59 yards on 10 carries for a 5.9-yard per rush average. He was the only ball-carrier among three to gain positive yards in the game. ]

Senior receiver Keyin Steeve went over the 250-yard mark for the season after catching five passes for 89 yards and a touchdown.

Remington Woosley caught three passes for 53 yards and Christensen caught one pass for five yards and a touchdown.

For the season, all three receivers had at least 190 yards and 10 or more receptions.

Nodaway Valley/OM’s defense was led in tackles by Ashton Honnold with a dozen stops. Honnold had 10 solo tackles and eight for a loss in the game. He also had one of two Wolverine quarterback sacks. He led the Wolverines in tackles for loss this year with 15 and tied for the team lead in sacks, finishing with 38 tackles.

Christensen had 5.5 tackles with 1.5 tackles for loss. Christensen led the Wolverines in tackles this year with 65.5 with 10 tackles for loss and also tied for the team lead in sacks. Other tackle leaders in the game were Parker Schneider with five, Derek Raasch with 4.5 and Keyin Steeve and Bram Dahl with four each. Schneider recovered a fumble in the game and Titan Foster had an interception.

MStM passed for 181 yards and rushed for 62 in the game. Hamilton completed 11 passes for 173 yards.

The Wolverines say goodbye to 12 seniors. The Wolverines snapped a 26-game losing streak with a Week 2 win at home over Central Decatur. Seniors on this year’s team were Steeve, Matthew Rudolf, Titus Hamer, Honnold, Bryan Gonzalez, Jacob Fry, Will Shilling, Wyatt Boden, Bennett Brown, Brody Brown, Woosley and Schneider.