OTTUMWA — Everything had to go Ottumwa’s way on Friday night to knock off Waukee Northwest.
Even the things the Bulldogs couldn’t control.
Like, for example, a referee accidentally blowing their whistle.
Ottumwa’s hope of making an opening statement by scoring on their opening drive was halted through no fault of the Bulldog offense. In fact, Spencer Dalbey appeared to have moved the chains and moved Ottumwa to midfield on the first possession of the game spinning through a pair of players for the Wolves before diving ahead for what appeared to be an impressive 14-yard run when 12 yards were needed on third down.
Dalbey and the Bulldogs were ready to go with a fresh set of downs. The referees, however, were not.
As Dalbey was in the process of splitting defenders, on of the three officials thought the Ottumwa quarterback had gone down. The result was a long conference that led to the ruling of an inadvertent whistle, wiping out the entire result of the previous play forcing the Bulldogs to have to make another incredible play all over again.
“It’s frustrating. It’s a big momentum killer,” Dalbey said. “The thing we struggled to do was to get back and get back momentum without letting those things bother us.”
Marquez Briggs was stopped well short of the first down on the replay of the third-down play, forcing Ottumwa to punt the ball away. Waukee Northwest never looked back, driving 64 yards in seven plays for the first of five touchdowns in the first half on the way to a 49-0 win over the Bulldogs improving to 4-2 on the season while dropping Ottumwa to 2-4 with three straight losses by a combined 92 points to three teams (Des Moines Lincoln, Southeast Polk and Waukee Northwest) with a combined record of 13-5.
“It was a confidence thing. We came out and just were not on top of it,” Dalbey said. “We need to get back to that.”
Ottumwa will look to get back on the winning track at Norwalk next Friday. While not easy, the Bulldogs face three final opponents (Norwalk, Des Moines Roosevelt and Iowa City High) that have a combined record of 8-10 with the last two games being played at Schafer Stadium.
“We just have to put in 100 percent effort every play, every quarter and every half of every game,” Dalbey said. “Every single time you step on the field is big. I feel like we’re a group of guys that, if we put in a 100-percent effort, we can go and compete with a lot of teams.”
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