Iowa State will take on Western Washington in the CRAA D1AA final after both teams won their semifinals Friday at Kuntz Stadium in Indianapolis, and for Iowa State, this was one of their most clinical performances in the last few years.
Both teams won in large part because they were very savvy in controlling field position. For Iowa State, they had raised it to an art form, and as a result Arizona State struggled mightily to score until late in the match.
The Cyclones pressured right off the kickoff, keeping ASU bottled up and eventually earning a turnover and then a penalty. Their maul was stopped, but off another penalty Iowa State scored off the quick tap—prop Nic Booz had several options open to him but he just tapped and lowered a shoulder, and it was enough.
It remained 5-0 for quite some time. Iowa State thought they had a couple of tries, but those were called back for a forward pass or offside on an interception. Even so fans started to see players make an impact. ISU left wing Beau Wadle work hard to make plays. He stopped an Arizona State penalty kick to touch from going out, only to graze the line with his foot. He pounced on a loose ball to for a turnover, and he was in the clear for one of those called-back tries.
Finally, some continuity from Iowa State with strong carries from hooker Dylan House and flankers Liam Cleary and Zach English allowed flyhalf Jack Johnson to send it wide to Wadle. He still had some work to do but powered through a tackle and beat two other defenders to race in for a try at 21 minutes.
The Sun Devils tried to respond, and with Iowa State continually getting into penalty trouble, mostly for not rolling away, they did have some scoring chances. But just about every time Arizona State had a lineout or scrum in the ISU zone, they either lost the ball or got such iffy possession that they couldn’t launch. Their backs, who had been such big scorers all season, found themselves with a lot less time and space than they were used to.
Iowa State’s defense came up quickly and they laid in some powerful double tackles. Forced to figure out what to do, ASU slowed down their attack to make sure everyone was in alignment. That resulted in Iowa State being comfortably organized on defense, and ASU’s hard chargers had nowhere to go.
Iowa State got their try off a series of hard forward carries and then they went wide; Johnson had a 2-on-3 but faked going wide and took the small gap that move provided, cruising in to make it 17-0.
Iowa State’s set piece was strong, too, and they got a try from just inside the ASU half when their pack shunted the Sun Devils eight back onto their backsides. The ball rolled to the ISU side and No. 8 John Braun picked up, dummied a defender out of the way, and galloped 45 meters for a rather astonishing try.
Johnson’s boot was also hugely influential, and off the restart a long kick deep put ASU fullback Jacob Hurl in two minds as to how to handle it. He was swarmed upon by the Cyclones, who turned the ball over and set up a hard run from English.
That ended the half at 31-0.
