(Greenfield) — Nodaway Valley football made a big jump from Week 0 to Week 1, at least on the scoreboard.

The Wolverines (1-1) bounced back from a tight loss to Southwest Valley in their opening game with a 48-0 victory over West Central Valley last Friday night.

“A lot of the improvement is normal,” Wolverines coach Duane Matthess told KMA Sports. “I would have liked to see us do better (with penalties), but we cleaned up the blocking mishaps that we were having. That was definitely a positive.”

Those clean-ups paid off in a big way for the Nodaway Valley running game, as they churned for 339 yards behind 226 from junior Adam Ayase and 122 from senior Tony Ayase. In addition, quarterback Nathan Russell threw for 196 yards and three scores.

“Our skill players, across the board, are pretty good,” Coach Matthess said. “I would put them up against a lot of other teams in Class A. When a team sets out to stop a player, that sets things up for the others. I really don’t think any team can go in and say they’re going to shut out one person across the board.”

With Coach Matthess’ first win as head coach out of the way, Nodaway Valley will now look to do something they haven’t done in 10 years: Beat Mount Ayr.

The annual “Battle for the Rock” is set for Greenfield on Friday evening, and despite being in his first year, Coach Matthess is well aware of the importance of this rivalry.

“Early on when I was doing zoom calls with players individually, I don’t think there was a single player that didn’t say they don’t want that Rock,” Matthess said. “It was quite evident that even though we haven’t had success against Mount Ayr in recent years that they want to beat them.”

The Wolverines will have plenty of ground to make up with Mount Ayr winning each of the last nine matchups, including the last eight by at least 22 points.

“A Mount Ayr-coached team is not going to make a lot of mistakes,” Matthess said, “and they’re going to be really well-coached. That’s something we’ve taken away from just watching film.”

The Raiders handled Albia last Friday night by a 36-7 score, leaning on their own prolific rushing game. Adler Shay had a team-high 11 carries for 85 yards while Dawson Swank rushed for 79 and two scores on 10 carries. Payton Weehler added nine carries for 73 yards and a touchdown, and Jaydon Knight had 77 yards on just six totes.

“They’re not going to beat themselves,” Matthess added. “We have to make sure we’re not getting behind the chains by having a penalty or anything like that. We just have to play really clean, not hurt ourselves and hopefully we can move the ball.”

Bret Ruggles will have reports from Greenfield on Friday evening during the Red Oak Chrysler Connection Show. Full coverage begins on AM 960 and FM 99.1 at 6:20 PM.

Hear the complete interview with Coach Matthess below.