GOING OUT AS WINNERS

WFCA EIGHT-PLAYER ALL-STAR GAME

Keepers is a force, Krizan keeps tackling in North’s win

Gilman’s Bryson Keepers made the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association All-State Eight-Player team in November for his play on offense.

On Friday, he showed his defensive ability is All-State caliber too.

Keepers was the most dominant player on the field, and his Pirate teammate Julian Krizan wasn’t bad either, as the North All-Stars defeated the South 23-6 in the WFCA Eight-Player All-Star Game played at UW-Oshkosh. Primary playing at left defensive end on a defense coordinated by Gilman assistant coach Tom Tallier, Keepers was credited with eight total tackles, seven of which were solo stops. He racked up 5.5 tackles for losses, four of which were quarterback sacks and he scored the final touchdown, which came off one of those sacks. He also forced a third-quarter fumble.

The North won the 11-man Small and Large School games on Saturday to earn its first-ever sweep since the event went to three games in 2015.

Keepers did most of his damage in the second half as the North held on to what had been a 15-0 halftime lead.

“It helped when we’re up by two possessions, we’re getting to six, seven, eight minutes to go in the fourth quarter and you know they’re passing the ball,” the 6-2, 160-pound Keepers said of his pass-rushing success. “The end wasn’t going to block me. You just widen out a little bit on your pass rush and you’ve got a straight line to the quarterback. The quarterback moved around quite a bit. He was tough to bring down. The coverage behind us was really good too.”

Krizan, playing his customary middle linebacker spot, finished with five total tackles, three of which were solo stops. He was credited with four assists and two tackles for loss. His biggest play came in the third quarter, when he dropped Lena running back Logan Shallow for a 3-yard loss on third and one to end a South drive with the score still 15-0.

“That was a big stop for us,” Krizan said. “Leading up to it, we needed that stop because they just had a first down right before it. That guard pulled and I just filled his gap hit the ankle and it was wrap and roll baby.” Having his two stalwarts on the squad certainly made Tallier a happy man. Led by Siren head coach Ryan Karsten, the North staff also included head coaches Todd Diethelm of Athens, Keldric Stokes of Thorp and Jordan LeBlanc of Clayton. Tallier’s defensive scheme was unfamiliar to most of the North players, but by mid-week he saw things were coming together and, on Friday, the North held the South to just 158 total yards, 52 of which came on one play, a fourth-quarter touchdown pass from Wabeno-Laona’s Connor Taylor to St. Mary Catholic’s Ethan Campbell that made it 15-6. Keepers, however, kept it a two-possession game by sacking Taylor on the two-point conversion.

“Luckily we had one practice on Monday, two on Tuesday, two on Wednesday and two on Thursday,” Tallier said. “By the time we got to Wednesday morning, the kids had grasped the concept, they knew when we were changing from cover-two to cover-three. Everyone had their gaps, and their assignments and the defense actually flat out shut down the scout team offense.”

The fact that Krizan played was remarkable. A no-brainer choice initially as a two-time eight-player All-State linebacker, Krizan opted out of the game in the spring as he intended to be working. However, he arrived back in Gilman from a job in Alaska late last week –– just as the North staff found out Newman Catholic linebacker Josh Klement wouldn’t be able to play due to a broken collarbone.

“That was absolutely crazy,” Krizan said. “I came home and was home for one day coming back from Alaska working. The day after I got back, Tom texted me and he said, ‘are you back in town?’ I said ‘yeah, I’m back for the summer.’ He said, ‘you want to play football one more time?’ I said, ‘absolutely.’ It just kind of went from there.”

“I was actually headed up to my cabin on Friday night, just to have a couple days away before going over there on Sunday,” Tallier said. “Karsten, the head coach, gives me a call and says, ‘you want the good news or bad news?’ He told me Klement had broke his collarbone and we had to find a replacement at linebacker. I literally told him to give me a night, let me think about it. That next morning, I go on my phone, I go on my Snap Map and I see Julian Krizan is in Wisconsin, not Alaska, and I’m like what in the heck is going on here?

“Unbelievable,” he added. “To lose an All-State linebacker in Klement, and you’re thinking how are we going to be able to replace him, and then to replace him with another All-State linebacker who had been literally 3,000 miles away the last time you knew was unbelievable.”

Team bonds quickly

The coaching staff was first to arrive at UW-River Falls, the team’s training site, on Sunday, July 10. They were followed by the players on Monday. After seven practices over a four-day span, the team bussed to Oshkosh on Friday.

The roster was built with the idea that players would only play on one side of the ball. Tallier said there was a draftlike process to determine the offensive and defensive sides. Having Keepers and Krizan on defense was huge, though both got a few offensive snaps as well. Tallier said they were instrumental in helping the other six defensive starters pick up the cover-two scheme.

“When you play football, usually at the beginning, the defense is ahead of the offense because you can just go find the ball, while the offense has to learn things,” Tallier said. “But that first night of scrimmaging, the offense kind of took it to us.”

“We didn’t look great, but we didn’t look terrible,” Krizan said of that first practice. “But from the moment we saw each other, we all clicked. Every one of us clicked. It was just great.”

“A great mesh of guys, different personalities that fit well together,” Keepers said. “It helps when you have (Krizan) playing middle linebacker. He’s been playing middle linebacker behind me for four years. It’s our defense. We didn’t have to come in and learn anything.”

“Julian is just a natural leader,” Tallier said. “With him being in the linebacker spot, he called the defense. He was the quarterback on the defensive side. He helped that transition greatly to help the kids learn our defense.”

The North forced a three-and-out to start the game, then Chequamegon’s Zachary Poetzl dashed 56 yards to the end zone on the team’s first offensive snap for a quick 6-0 lead. Keepers and Krizan shared their first tackles of the game on the next series, bringing down Shallow for a 1-yard gain on first down and for no gain on a third-and-four pass play. Krizan added a few more tackles before halftime. Athens quarterback Cooper Diedrich scampered 12 yards for a touchdown to extend the lead to 12-0 with 9:39 left. Diedrich ended the half with a 40-yard field goal to push the lead to 15, which was actually disappointing considering the North had a 235-45 edge in total yardage. Two North drives ended on downs deep in South territory.

The offense continued to struggle in the third quarter, but the defense did not. After a short Poetzl punt gave the South prime field position at the North’s 30, Keepers pulled the ball free from Shallow on second down and it was recovered by Newman’s Nate Klement to end that threat. Krizan got his big stop on the next South possession just shy of midfield.

“We all knew they were running that play,” Keepers said. “They had run it two plays before that. They ran the same motion. They had success on the play before. We all knew it was going there. (Krizan) shot the gap and made the tackle.”

After another exchange of punts, the North had great field position at the South’s 32, but Diedrich lost a fumble. Keepers’ pressure drew a holding penalty, but the South got its big touchdown pass with 11:07 left in the game. The North’s ensuing drive ended on the South’s 19, setting the stage for Keepers.

First, he blew by 6-4, 300-pound lineman Cameron Connolly of St. Mary Catholic to sack Taylor for a 7-yard loss. Then Keepers and Ryan Losh of Chequamegon quickly collapsed the pocket and buried Taylor, with Keepers winding up with the ball at the goal line.

“I’m rushing the quarterback and I get a good rush on him,” Keepers said. “He scrambles to my right. Losh, the other defensive lineman, he’s rushing middle. He grabs him, the ball squirts out right into my hands, I barely even know the ball’s in my hands and I look down and I’m in the end zone. Touchdown! Let’s go! I wasn’t even sure if the ref knew I had the ball. I had to go up to him and say, ‘I had the ball that’s a touchdown right?’” Gilman’s guys put the exclamation point on the score by teaming up on the two-point conversion. Krizan, the North’s quarterback on its two-point sets, faked a run up the middle and then dropped a jump pass into Keepers’ hand at the back of the end zone. Krizan had two carries for 8 yards in the game and a caught a 4-yard pass.

“To see the two Gilman kids excel was a great feeling just to show what we’ve had here the past few years and the success that we’ve had really does boil down to the kids,” Tallier said. “Bryson Keepers was unblockable. He was unstoppable. To have a game with eight tackles, four sacks, a defensive touchdown. He was the show. It was great to see.”

Keepers’ final sack was for a 12-yard loss on Belmont’s Waylon Palzkill on the South’s next and final possession.

For Tallier, who played in the All-Star event when it was a single game back in 1995, coaching in it was another perspective he hoped he would experience at some point.

“We came in on Sunday as coaches and we hit it off right away,” Tallier said. “Then to see the kids come in on Monday. We talked to them about taking in the experience. We know you all have cell phones we can stay in our rooms and be safe and communicate that way, but try to interact with people. These friendships, these relationships are going to carry on through your life. These kids took to that. Everyone interacted with each other. Everyone had a good time. It really was a good week.”

“Not only the game, just the whole week was a ton of fun, getting to be around guys who I’ve never met before,” Keepers said. “We’ve played against most of them. But to get to play with them is something different.”

The games serve as a fundraiser for Children’s Wisconsin Hospitals. Players and coaches from the six teams raised $359,656 which was presented in a ceremonial halftime check presentation.

“It’s a good cause they’ve got going here. It’s what the week’s all about,” Keepers said.

“I got off the bus, I put my stuff down in the locker room, I walked out on the field and I looked around the field and I was just like, ‘whoa, this is a step up from Chippewa Falls McDonell’s turf field and a step up from Stanley,’” Krizan said about arriving at Titan Stadium Friday. “Wow. I went up to the top and just looked out from there. It was just amazing. There couldn’t be a better feeling right now.”

Gilman head football coach Robin Rosemeyer (left) and assistant coach Justin Young (right) join North All-Stars Bryson Keepers, Tom Tallier and Julian Krizan for a post-game picture after the team’s 23-6 win over the South Friday.MATT FREY/THE STAR NEWS