WAPELLO — Sometimes it’s not the size of the man in the fight, but rather the size of the fight in the man.

West Burlington-Notre Dame isn’t the biggest football team around. In fact, for a Class 2A school, the Falcons are rather small in stature.

That didn’t seem to faze the Falcons at all in the season opener.

WB-ND scored 40 unanswered points and rolled to a 46-6 victory over Wapello on a sweltering Friday night at the Carl “Mac” McGill Athletic Complex.

And for the first time in seven years, WB-ND is 1-0 heading into next week’s home opener against Mount Pleasant.

If WB-ND head coach Joe Bowman had any doubts about his team’s heart and determination, those were put to rest in impressive fashion.

“I think it starts with our effort. We talk about that a lot in practice,” Bowman said. “We are not big. We’re not going to get big this year, so we have to play fast. We have to play with a relentless pursuit on both sides of the ball. We were extremely sloppy tonight. We will have a lot to correct going into next week. But our effort was there. That’s what I was most proud of.”

WB-ND got on the scoreboard on its opening possession after blocking a Wapello punt. Senior quarterback Caden Schwenker followed his blocking on a run around the left end, scampering 35 yards to give the Falcons a quick 6-0 lead.

“The receivers and line just blocked really well and I had a wide-open lane right into the end zone,” said Schwenker, who rushed for two scores and threw for another.

Wapello responded with an 11-play, 60 yard drive. Grant Wilson scored on a two-yard burst up the middle to knot the game at 6 late in the first quarter.

“We didn’t scrimmage, so we wanted to see how we would come out and play from there,” first-year Wapello coach Travis Wright said. “At the end of the day, our kids fought hard.”

WB-ND would take command from there, thanks in part to its special teams.

Following a 3-yard scoring run by Quincy Collins, Taylor Lundgren placed a perfect pooch kick with the Falcons recovered and the Wapello 48.

That led to a 2-yard plunge by Schwenker to give the Falcons an 18-6 lead.

Lundgren tried four short kicks. The Falcons recovered two and nearly got the other two,

“The first half was kind of sloppy for me. I did better in practice. Now that I got the hang of it in game — it’s a new play we’re doing — I think it’s very dangerous,” Lundgren said. “Especially if we are down by a couple. We can use that to get the ball right back. They never expected it. I can line up the same as a normal kickoff and they won’t expect it. Just kick it right where I need it to be.”

A brilliant play call by Bowman set up Schwenker’s second scoring run. On a jailbreak right, Schwenker whirled and threw back across the field to Dylan Kipp, who sprinted 50 yards to the Wapello 8.

“We do like to motion and pass a lot. We designed a little play to throw it back to Kipp because we saw their defense was heavily pursuing,” Bowman said.

“We are fortunate to have Dylan Kipp. Dylan has played receiver for us the last couple years. We told him when we started July 31 we were going to move him to tight end. We’re going to ask him to do some different things than he’s done in the past. Kipp, being the person he is, he accepts it and gives it everything he has. You put that with his intelligence and his athletic ability and you have something special.”

WB-ND used three goal-line stands in the third quarter to preserve the lead.

With just over 20 seconds left in the quarter, Collins sat on a slant route on the goal line. He intercepted Carson Belzer’s pass intended for Jaren Frank and returned it 100 yards to give the Falcons a 33-6 lead.

“The play before that he did the same thing. I went for it. The second time I dropped back, read it and caught it and took off,” Collins said. “It was long. I felt him right there behind me, but I kept going and kept going and kept going. Finally it was there.”

“Quincy Collins is a fantastic football player,” Bowman said. “He played linebacker for us last year. You’re going to see big things from him this year. That speaks volumes for him. Third quarter he made that interception. It feels like a hundred degrees out here and he ran it back after playing probably 85 snaps to that point. He’s a tremendous competitor.”

Schwenker connected with Isaiah Crow on a 35-yard scoring pass and Logan Hamma scored on a 5-yard run to complete the scoring.

The Falcons may not be the biggest football team around, but then again their is no tape measure which can measure a team’s heart.

And 1-0 is feeling pretty good right now.

“To say the Falcons are 1-0 — that’s something I’ve never experienced and I’m a junior now. I’ve been kicking since freshman year. It’s a great feeling,” Lundgren said.

“I feel great. It’s been a while since we started 1-0, but there’s always things to clean up,” Collins said. “We’ll get back and start again on Monday.”