With its passing game misfiring, Westlake turned back the clock and leaned on its offensive line and relentless ground game to grind out a 20-14 Battle of the Lakes win over rival Lake Travis Friday night.

“You just can’t say enough about our offensive line,” Westlake running back Jack Kayser, the biggest beneficiary of the work his five much larger teammates did, said.

Westlake’s traditionally prolific passing game never got untracked. Paxton Land completed just 1 of his 7 passes before giving way to Rees Wise, who fared marginally better, completing 7 of 14 passes. Together they amassed just 66 passing yards.

Lake Travis, though, couldn’t stop the Westlake rushing attack, especially as the game wore down. The Chaps finished with 285 yards on the ground on 54 punishing carries, just over 5 yards per carry.

“Every big game we play in, we say five yards is a championship level play,” Kayser said.

“When you can run the football, it makes every game winnable,” Westlake coach Tony Salazar said. “I think (the Lake Travis) guys are going to be a little sore tomorrow and our guys got after them a little bit tonight. We wore their defense out. You could see guys with hands on their hips standing up trying to breathe air, and when you see that, you feel like you got ‘em. And that fuels our offensive line and running backs to keep doing what we’re doing.”

The offensive line, led by all-state tackle Tyler Knape, was more than happy to run the ball time and again.

“We came into the game knowing where the mismatch was,” Knape said. “Our game plan was to run the damn ball, and we ran the damn ball. Our confidence grew throughout the game – it was extremely high coming in – but when you see the defense start tapping their heads, that’s a good sign for us.”

Knape and teammates William Twardoswksi, Bennett Wilkin, Richard Grigg and Riley Kennedy took the battle to a Lake Travis defense that allowed just 10 points and 115 rushing yards per game. While the big plays weren’t there early, short gains turned into big plays at timely moments after halftime.

Kayser rushed for 109 of his 165 yards after halftime, including a 40-yard touchdown that gave Westlake a 17-7 lead midway through the third quarter. His 4 longest runs came after halftime.

“In a game like this, the 5-yard gain eventually turns into 10,” Kayser said. “I think you saw that at the end. I started busting a few more big ones. It happens. Even on the touchdown, it looks good on my stats, but I busted right through the middle and there was no one around me. Again, I can’t say enough about the line.”

A line that’s still coming into its own, according to the leader.

“We’re a young offensive line and it’s really promising to see the kind of dominance we achieved today at such an early stage of our development,” Knape, one of the only seniors who starts in the trenches, said.

Knape said he feels a little like the group’s Papa Bear but notes very quickly that he – along with his teammates – has a lot of growing still to do.

“I feel like a Papa Bear but this Papa Bear still needs to get better as well as the entire o-line,” he said. “I think as the weeks go on we can develop into one of the best lines in the state, if not the nation.”

“We’ll take it,” Salazar said of the Chaps’ patience to keep the chains moving with short runs. “When you’re moving the chains, the clock is moving and your defense is resting on the sideline. And that, in turn, allows our defense to hold a team like that to 14 points.”

In the end, Westlake’s offense ran 75 plays. Lake Travis ran just 40 plays.

It’s a formula the coach and players won’t mind following in big games to come.

“People don’t like getting hit in the mouth for 4 quarters, you know?” Kayser said. “This is Texas at the end of the day. It’s not California. We’re going to run the ball.”