Wednesday night at the Little Rose Bowl in West Branch, the Bears defeated the Columbus Wildcats 55-20 in the first round of the 2015 Iowa High School playoffs.

As they've done several times this season, the Bears got on the scoreboard early and often, cruising to a 21-0 first quarter lead, extending that to 48-0 at the half.

In the first quarter, after the Wildcats' opening possession ended thanks to a Matt Shawver interception, QB Cooper Koenig used his speed to run 35 yards into the endzone for the early 7-0 lead. After stopping the Wildcats on their next drive, Shawver comes up big again. This time, the senior captain takes the Columbus punt back 79 yards to put the Bears up 14-0.

Later in the first, Devin Kindon caps off a hard-hitting West Branch drive by juking his way into the endzone for a 15 yard touchdown run, putting the Bears up 21-0 at the end of the first.

Half way through the second quarter, Aaron Barnes busts a Koenig handoff 19 yards to put his name in the statbook and the Bears up 28-0. On the next West Branch drive, Barnes gets into the endzone once again, this time from six yards out. Barnes ended his evening with 55 rushing yards and two TDs.

On the very next drive, Cooper Koenig hooks up with Cooper Kabela on a nice tight end screen play that is taken 32 yards for another Bear touchdown 42-0 late in the first half.

But the Bears weren't done in the first half. After forcing a Wildcat turnover on downs, the Bears march their way down to the one yard line where Cooper Koenig closes his night out with a QB keeper for six pionts. Koenig was 7/13 passing for 113 yards to go along with 60 yards rushing. The senior QB threw one TD pass and tallied two rushing TDs.

West Branch lead Columbus 48-0 at the half.

On the very first offensive play of the second half, QB Brandon Rummelhart throws a spot-on laser to Hunter Wargo who uses his speed to go 55 yards. 55-0 West Branch.

In rest of the second half, Columbus scored on the Bears' second-team defense, who gave up 20.

Final: West Branch 55, Columbus 20.