Would-be huge win slips away in last minute

THORP 31, GILMAN 30

The Gilman Pirates were potentially one play away from clinching an exhilarating come-from-behind road win at unbeaten Thorp Friday. Instead, moments later, they found themselves on the wrong end of a gutwrenching 31-30 defeat that knocked them out of Central Wisconsin East Conference championship contention.

A fumble inside Thorp’s 5-yard line with 1:41 left gave the Cardinals a last-gasp chance to overcome a 30-25 deficit and they took full advantage of it, driving 97 yards for the go-ahead score, which came on a 25yard catch and run by Denzel Sutton with 16 seconds left. A 61-yard completion on third and 10 from Aiden Rosemeyer to Ashton Kroeplin set up the game-winning score.

Gilman fought back from 13-0 and 19-8 first-half deficits and basically could not be stopped offensively by Thorp in the second half. Unfortunately, the Pirates stopped themselves with two lost fumbles in the half, the second of which came with them being on the doorstep of a touchdown that would’ve put them up by two scores with minimal time remaining.

“You can count the last interception that we threw on the last play of the game as our fifth turnover, but the four other ones were the tough ones to overcome,” Gilman head coach Robin Rosemeyer said. “When you lose three snaps or exchanges, that’s a tough one. It’s been a small issue all year. We haven’t lost possessions that much before but we’ve lost plays. In a game like this, it really adds up. There are other things that happened too, but those obviously stick out.

“The kids gave a great effort,” he added. “We got down early 13-0 and lost a possession with a fumble, but we were able to get a three and out and were able to get our offense going then. Give the kids credit for not giving up early because it was not real comfortable early on in that first quarter for us. The kids responded pretty good.”

After Logan Hanson recovered the final fumbled snap at the 3, Aiden Rosemeyer hit Sutton on a quick pass to the left sideline for 8 yards. On fourth and one, Hanson ran for 3 yards to the 14. After two incompletions, Rosemeyer was flushed to his right and was in the process of getting sacked by Pirate Braeden Person when he found Kroeplin behind Gilman’s defense for the big 61-yard bomb that was one tackle away from going the distance.

That tackle by Casey Grunseth with 39 seconds left gave Gilman a chance to regroup and get one more stop. But again on third and 10, Thorp made a play with Sutton catching a slant pass to the left side and breaking two tackles while sprinting to the end zone to give Thorp the lead.

“Ashton Kroeplin is their fastest kid and big-play receiver,” coach Rosemeyer said. “We were pressing him at the line of scrimmage just to throw off route patterns. For a lot of the night we did that. He went in first and was running a post, then because of the scramble he went back to the quarterback’s scramble side and just kinda got behind us. We still had two guys in the vicinity. He was just too far behind us. We were lucky to still get him tackled.”

The ensuing kickoff went out of bounds, giving Gilman the ball at its 35 with no time going off the clock. On first down, a wheel route to the left to running back Troy Duellman had a chance, but Grady Kroeplin’s throw was just a bit long. Gilman came back to it on second down and completed it for 30 yards to Thorp’s 35, giving the Pirates one last play with three seconds left. But Kroeplin’s hail mary pass to the end zone was intercepted by Thorp’s Dylan Mattson.

Similar to Gilman’s most recent losses to Owen-Withee two weeks earlier and to Newman Catholic in last fall’s state semifinal, a slow start hurt the Pirates.

The teams traded punts on their opening possessions, then Hanson struck first for Thorp, breaking an arm tackle at the line of scrimmage and sprinting 66 yards for a touchdown that made it 7-0 at the 7:32 mark of the first quarter. Cardinal Trent Denman blocked a Grady Kroeplin punt, giving Thorp the ball at Gilman’s 11. The Cardinals overcame a holding penalty, getting a 17-yard scoring toss from Rosemeyer to Sutton for a 13-0 lead.

The Pirates then fumbled away a snap and were in danger of getting blown out early, but the defense held and then the offense finally woke up, driving 66 yards in just five plays. Kroeplin hit Branden Ustianowski over the middle for the first of his three touchdown receptions, this one covering 30 yards. Kroeplin ran in the two-point try to cut Thorp’s lead to 13-8 with 37 seconds left in the quarter.

The defenses had their best stretches of football in the second quarter, until the last two minutes, though Gilman had an 82-yard touchdown run by Kroeplin called back by penalty. Thorp put together a 62-yard drive that took over three minutes off the clock and ended with Aiden Rosemeyer’s 1-yard run with 1:19 left. Gilman needed just two plays to respond after a short kickoff, getting a 6-yard run by Kroeplin and then a 49-yard scoring pass across the middle to Ustianowski with 24 seconds left. Kroeplin again ran in for two and pulled Gilman within 19-16 at the half.

“We knew when they loaded the box that the middle was going to be open if we could run some play action to keep the linebackers tight,” coach Rosemeyer said. “Two of Branden’s catches were dive passes, just a quick fake and a throw. But on that one (before the half) he was running a post and Troy was running a little out pattern. The middle was open and Branden made a good catch.”

Gilman lost another fumbled snap on a promising drive that started the third quarter, but the defense held. The Pirates then slammed their way to a 69-yard drive, running downhill out of I-formations with Duellman doing most of the work. A 6-yard pop pass to Ustianowski put the ball in the end zone and gave the Pirates their first lead at 22-19 with 3:59 left in the third.

Duellman had a big night, rushing for 185 yards on 27 carries. Kroeplin added 100 yards on nine attempts, mainly on bootleg keepers to the outside.

“We just tried to double-team the nose, get a good kickout on the end and get the fullback through to get onto the linebacker,” Rosemeyer said. “It was working pretty good. We were confident all week that we could run the ball on them and we did.”

At that point, the defenses seemed to run out of gas.

Thorp (4-0, 7-0) responded with a 54yard scoring drive that ended with Hanson’s 3-yard scoring run that put the Cardinals back on top 25-22 with 10:45 left. Gilman quickly muscled its way back down the field and regained the lead on Wayne McAlpine’s 16-yard scoring run with 8:24 left. Dawson Krizan found Caleb Marion on the two-point pass to give Gilman a five-point cushion.

The Pirates got a fourth-down interception by Grunseth when the ball basically landed in his lap on a ball tipped by Sam Syryczuk and took over the ball at their 20 with 6:03 left. Had the ball dropped, Gilman would’ve have had the ball at its 46. Still, they methodically drove deep into scoring range and took over four minutes off the clock before disaster struck.

“We needed to be better with our clock management on our last drive,” Rosemeyer said. “We started that last drive with six minutes and we needed to slow down more. We were too fast in and out of the huddle and that’s my fault. We haven’t practiced that situation yet because we haven’t been in that situation yet. We needed to stay in the huddle until the official tells you there’s 10 seconds left on the play clock and break the huddle and go. That would’ve taken at least 3040 seconds on that last drive. Even with the fumble, then they’d get the ball with a minute left, instead of 1:40. I needed to take a timeout there.”

As advertised, Thorp’s offensive production was balanced. Hanson ran for 212 of the Cardinals’ 246 rushing yards. Rosemeyer completed 11 of 28 passes for 195 yards. Sutton caught four passes for 77 yards.

“Hanson had his 200 yards,” Robin Rosemeyer said. “He probably got 50 of them where we took care of the point of attack well but then he reversed his field and he’s fast. We just took some bad angles and he was still able to get 8-10 yards sometimes by just reversing field and going to the other sideline. Our angles on the pursuit weren’t real great, but part of it was just him being pretty fast. ”

Thorp moves on to play also unbeaten Owen-Withee tonight, Thursday, for the undisputed conference title. Neither of those teams, however, are eligible for the eight-player post-season.

Gilman (2-2, 5-2) looks to finish strong Friday when it hosts Athens (2-2, 5-2) in a good conference matchup at 7 p.m. The Pirates are looking at this matchup as a playoff game as they’ll likely need to win it to get into the WIAA’s 16-team tournament field.

“Basically it’s a playoff game for us,” Rosemeyer said. “We have to win to survive and advance. We told the kids the other night, this is your home playoff game right here.”