Latham passes 2,000 rushing mark in West Fork homecoming victory

SHEFFIELD — West Fork went with a heavy dose of Ian Latham early to put away Nashua-Plainfield in this 16-0 non-district homecoming win on Friday, Sept. 20.

The senior all-stater carried the ball eight of the first 10 plays for the Warhawks and capped it with a three-yard touchdown run to put coach James Perez’s team on top for good.

“I think I took maybe one snap off on kick-off,” Latham said, “and that’s all; I’m a little tired, but that’s every game. It’s no problem, I love playing. I had a little bit of a cramp in my calf in the second half, but other than that, I’m great. I feel good, a lot of energy left in the tank.”

He finished the game with 28 carries for 161 yards, surpassing the career 2,000-yard mark with 2,009, becoming the second-leading rusher in school history.

However, playing nearly the entire contest had its wear on Latham.

“You can expect that when you carry the ball 25-30 times a game,” Perez said of Latham. “He’s a workhorse, love the kid, does a lot of great things. You can’t be one-dimensional, and we’ve got to make sure we’re not.”

Latham trails only Spencer Halloran, who finished with 3,362 career rushing yards.

“They had some guys who hit hard at the bottom of the pile,” Latham said, “but it was a normal game.”

After forcing N-P to go three-and-out on its next possession, Latham quickly moved the ball down the field, culminating on a one-yard quarterback keeper for Kellen Cameron.

Little did Perez and the Warhawks know that their next possession, ending with a 22-yard field goal by Ren Heimer with three seconds left until halftime would be the last scoring of the game.

Each team moved the ball in the second half, but penalties on both sides stalled drives for both the Huskies and Warhawks.

The win improved West Fork’s overall record to 2-2 and Perez said he’ll take it.

“We won,” Perez said. “I’d say they were more finesse (than physical). They wanted to get to the outside on you and we counted that with our speed and athleticism that we have and kids hit hard tonight.”

It was also the second straight week the Warhawks pitched a shutout of their opponent.

“Defense came out and played really well, obviously there are some things we have to figure out on offense, get rolling there,” Perez said. “Definitely can’t come to a stop like we did there in the second, third and fourth quarters like we did there. We moved the ball well, just couldn’t punch it in. Back to the drawing board, figure out what we’ve got, some good things going.

“We’re working on tackling five days a week helps. We’ve got to keep that going, got to keep doing the right things. The kids are tackling well, making great plays in space and hitting hard. It’s great to see.”

Latham, too, was proud of the team’s defense. He accounted for three tackles in open space. The leader was freshman Josiah Chibambo, who tallied 11.5, including two for losses with a sack of N-P quarterback Michael Stille.

“It was great,” Latham said. “We have a lot to work on because I believe we’re better than 16 points on the scoreboard, but definitely, our defense (was great). We played a team that liked to pass it more this week, so we had to focus on the secondary.

“Two shut-outs in a row, that’s great. Can’t complain, but there is always more work to do.”

Next up for the Warhawks is a 3-1 Belmond-Klemme team that has Clarion-Goldfield transfer Jaace Weidemann, who stands 6-foot-3 and weighs in at 200 pounds. He rolled up 239 ground yards in last week’s 34-14 win over North Butler last Friday night.

He has 818 yards rushing, currently sixth in the state among all classes in rushing.

“Belmond, they have a running back (Jaace Weidemann) that’s a lot like Ian, only a little bigger,” Perez said. “We’ve got to stop him.

“My cousin plays wide out for them, so it will be a bit of a family battle. Kaleb Carlson, so we’ll have to see about that. If we stop those two, we’ll be all right. It should be a good battle.”

Latham added, “I’m sure that’s what we’ll focus on this week in practice, see if we can stop him. It should be a good week of practice and looking forward to playing Belmond next week.”