Blackhawks shut down after first drive; Gilman stays unbeaten

GILMAN 28, OWEN-WITHEE 6

As expected, the Gilman Pirates experienced their first four-quarter football game in Friday’s Central Wisconsin East Conference showdown with Owen-Withee and they thrived in the late going, pulling away in the second half for a 28-6 victory.

The Blackhawks took an early 6-0 lead behind a game-opening 64-yard drive that took nearly 10:30 off the clock, but the defense figured things out after that, holding off only one more scoring threat in the last three quarters. The offense, which got four touchdown runs from Troy Duellman, kept probing until it found the areas it needed to attack, scoring on three straight second-half possessions.

Gilman improved to 5-0 overall and 2-0 in league play heading into this Friday’s homecoming contest with Alma Center Lincoln (0-2, 2-3). Owen-Withee, last year’s conference champions, fell to 3-2, 1-1.

Gilman held on to the top spot in the state’s eight-player WisSports.net/ coaches poll this week. Owen-Withee came into Friday’s game ranked seventh and fell out of the top 10 this week.

“I thought our kids really played well, defensively especially,” Gilman head coach Robin Rosemeyer said. “Coach (Tom) Tallier put in a really good game plan and the kids really executed it well. Just on that first drive they were a little bit better than we were. We do have good depth, but still it’s hard to truly execute like they do with our scout team in practice. It just took us a little bit to get up to their speed, but we did a great job as the game went on.”

The game-opening drive for the Blackhawks was an 18-play grinder that included just one play that gained double-digit yardage and three fourth-down conversions. In fact, the Blackhawks did not convert on any of their 11 third downs in the game. The last of those fourth-down conversions, a 6-yard gain by quarterback Dominic Sherwood on fourth and six, set up Tim Stock’s 4-yard touchdown run on the next play. Stock’s two-point run failed, but Owen-Withee had a 6-0 lead with just 1:34 left in the first quarter.

Gilman went scoreless on its first three possessions with the second one dying at Owen-Withee’s 10 with help from a holding penalty. The next one started at Owen-Withee’s 39 after a short Blackhawk punt, but after a 12-yard run by Chad Konsella, four straight pass incompletions gave the ball back to Owen-Withee.

Gilman quickly forced another punt and Konsella returned this one 22 yards to Owen-Withee’s 47. A reverse to Konsella on fourth and four gained 12 yards and, on the next play, Duellman finally put the Pirates in the end zone with 1:18 left in the half, bouncing out to the right side on a 29-yard touchdown run.

The two-point run failed, keeping the game tied at 6-6 at halftime.

“On the first couple of drives we tried some new things that didn’t really work,” Rosemeyer said. “Then we tried to spread them out a little bit and that worked to an extent, but we can only do so much with that. We decided we had to go to running our stuff and go block them the way we’re built to do. Getting that score right before halftime gave us a big lift and gave us some good momentum and confidence going into the second half.”

The Pirates took the lead with a 70yard, seven-play drive to start the second half. Quarterback Dawson Krizan carried three times for 33 yards on the drive and three inside traps to Tony Syryczuk gained 25 key yards, setting up a 12-yard scoring run by Duellman with 9:49 left in the quarter.

Ryan Nelson’s 26-yard kickoff return to the 42 kick-started Owen-Withee’s last penetration deep into Gilman territory. But after three first downs, a penalty and a sack by Dalton Wisocky, his second of the game, killed the drive at the 26.

Rosemeyer said Gilman’s defensive scheme eventually limited Owen-Withee from being able to pull its guards and forced the Blackhawks into a more straight-ahead approach, which the Pirates handled well.

“Whether it was the dive or their option, I thought we covered it pretty well after that first drive,” Rosemeyer said. “And I wouldn’t say we played badly on the first drive.”

From there, Gilman turned around and went 74 yards in 13 plays and took almost six minutes off the clock. A third-down pass interference call helped keep the drive going early after Krizan had been sacked for a 10-yard loss. Duellman’s 20-yard run was the other big play in the drive, which ended with his third score of the game, this one from 7 yards out. He also caught the two-point pass from Krizan to make it 20-6 with 8:43 left.

Gilman’s kickoff team then broke Owen-Withee’s back. Outside man Kolby Keepers ran down Brayden Olynick’s short kickoff to the left sideline, recovering it at Owen-Withee’s 39. Duellman’s 24-yard run four plays later put the game out of reach with 6:24 left.

“That kick just landed in the perfect spot for us and Kolby was able to get there and grab it,” Rosemeyer said. “That was the direction we wanted to kick it. It was not the plan to recover it, but it worked out for us.”

Duellman, who only had 23 carries in Gilman’s first four games due to the lopsided scores in each of them, got the ball 15 times in Friday’s win and gained 128 yards. Krizan gained 94 yards on 16 carries and Syryczuk added 31 yards on six carries.

Gilman had a 310-128 advantage in total yardage with 277 yards coming on the ground. Krizan was four of 11 for 33 yards through the air. All of Owen-Withee’s yardage came on the ground. The Blackhawks averaged a meager 3.0 yards per carry on 43 attempts. All-conference back Colin Dallman was limited to 55 yards on 20 carries.

Duellman led Gilman with 15 total tackles. Wisocky had 11, Caleb Marion had eight and Lee Zagorski created some havoc up the middle with five tackles, with many of those coming early.

Hornets fly in

After preparing for Owen-Withee’s ground and pound offensive approach, Gilman will see something completely different from Alma Center Lincoln on Friday.

The Hornets rely on the passing game more than any other conference opponent. WisSports.net statistics show junior quarterback Jace Paul completing half of his 106 pass attempts through five games for 984 yards and 15 touchdowns. He’s also run for 150 yards. Luke Anderson, a 195-pound junior, has rushed for a respectable 403 yards, including 114 on 25 carries in last week’s 28-18 home loss to Athens.

Paul put up pretty big passing numbers in lopsided wins over Lake Holcombe and Cornell and in a 36-20 seasonopening loss to Bruce. But conference foes Athens and Thorp limited him to 144 and 118 yards. Thorp pounded the Hornets 74-16 two weeks ago.

Rosemeyer said the Hornets did put in a jumbo-type formation at times in the Athens game, but that’s not likely to be what they’ll lean on Friday.

“They want to spread you out and throw the ball,” Rosemeyer said. “They run a lot of crossing patterns and then they’ll take some deep shots. They average 37 points a game. They ran up a lot of points like we did against Lake Holcombe and Cornell but they’ve scored at least two touchdowns in every game. They are having more success than the last couple of years.”

Dalton Wisocky