Athens wins possession stat; Pirates own the scoreboard

GILMAN 54, ATHENS 16

It’s hard to beat six touchdowns in six possessions, which is what the Gilman Pirates got in a 54-16 home win over visiting Athens Friday to close out the regular season.

The Pirates sail into the playoffs riding a wave of momentum on offense. Since a Sept. 23 loss at Owen-Withee, the Pirates have scored 142 points in the three games, one of which was quickly shortened by a running clock. In Friday’s win, the Pirates piled up 350 yards in just 22 offensive plays to easily overcome two early touchdowns by the Blue Jays.

The teams came into the game with identical 2-2 conference records and 5-2 overall records, but Gilman easily claimed third place in the Central Wisconsin East Conference’s final standings with the win and earned a spot in the WIAA’s 16-team eight-player post-season tournament. The Pirates will host another group of Blue Jays from Three Lakes-Phelps Friday at 7 p.m. in a Level 1 contest.

For awhile on Friday, it looked like neither Athens nor Gilman was going to get a defensive stop. In fact, it felt like Gilman never had the ball in the first quarter and a half.

“The one stat that really jumped out was that we only ran 22 plays to their 67,” Gilman head coach Robin Rosemeyer said. “They just kind of kept getting first downs, whether it was converting little third downs or fourth downs. They just got enough to keep the chains moving. Offensively, I thought we executed pretty well and were able to make some big plays. Some of their inexperience on the back end showed. Their secondary is pretty young. Once we got to that point we were in good shape.”

Athens took advantage of a short opening kick and ate up half of the first quarter by taking 12 plays to go 52 yards and score the game’s first points. The Blue Jays got a third-and-10 conversion on a 21-yard pass from Kyler Ellenbecker to Kamden Zarnke and a pass to Aiden Janke got 10 in a third-and-nine situation. Ellenbecker’s 1-yard run and his two-point run capped the drive with 5:47 left in the quarter and gave Athens an 8-0 lead.

Conversely, Gilman needed just three plays to answer, getting a 17-yard run by quarterback Grady Kroeplin, a 7-yard run from Sam Syryczuk and a 33-yard burst off the left side from Troy Duellman for the touchdown. Kroeplin’s two-point run tied it.

Back came Athens with another methodical march that covered 66 yards, lasted 16 plays and chewed eight minutes off the clock. Ellenbecker scored the touchdown again, this time from 2 yards out and he added the two-point conversion.

Ellenbecker is typically the quarterback for Athens, but in some formations Friday, the Blue Jays lined him up in the backfield and had him take handoffs from Zarnke, a freshman.

“It was concerning because it was just enough to keep the chains going,” Rosemeyer said. “They were getting first downs and the clock was really ticking along. We were playing a lot of defense and didn’t have many possessions in that first half.”

The game turned at that point, however. After the kickoff by Athens went out of bounds, Duellman raced 65 yards to the end zone and Kroeplin added the conversion, tying the game at 16-16 despite Athens having the ball for 14:33 and Gilman having just 78 seconds in time of possession.

Athens then surprisingly turned to passing more on its next possession and paid for it with a third-down sack from Gilman’s Branden Ustianowski. The Pirates hit another big play after the ensuing punt. On the fifth play of an 81-yard drive, Ustianowski, lined up at tight end on the left side, snuck behind the Athens secondary and caught a 54-yard touchdown pass from Kroeplin, who added another two-point run to give Gilman its first lead, 24-16, with 2:45 left in the half.

Athens picked up a first down on its next possession but didn’t quite run enough time off the clock before stalling on downs at Gilman’s 47. Starting with 22 seconds left in the half, Gilman got a 25-yard completion to Duellman and a 27-yard completion to Ustianowski, both of which ended with the receivers going out of bounds on the left side. After an incompletion, there was time for one more play and Kroeplin made it work with a 1-yard scoring run. He scrambled to complete the two-point conversion, sending the Pirates into the locker room with a 32-16 lead.

“Being able to score in the last 22 seconds of the first half on that little drive was really big,” Rosemeyer said. “To go up 16 was a big momentum change and put us in a more comfortable position going into the second half. We were able to get some kids out in space who are athletic on that drive. They missed some tackles, with part of that being due to their inexperience in the secondary. That was a good series. It was tough because they were moving the ball enough where if we take timeouts, we still give them a chance to score yet. We took the chance of using a couple of timeouts and it worked out well for us.”

Kroeplin’s 35-yard burst set up Duellman’s third touchdown of the night, a 1-yard run that made it 38-16 just 51 seconds into the third quarter. Another lengthy Athens drive came up empty with a Kroeplin interception and return that set the Pirates up on their 45. Seven plays later, Kroeplin scored on a 17-yard run on the last play of the third quarter that widened the lead to 46-16.

Ustianowski then closed the scoring by returning an Athens punt 47 yards for a touchdown to put the running clock in motion with 6:54 to play. Ustianowski fielded the ball on what would be about the left hashmarks, cut to the right and got key blocks from Duellman and Wayne McAlpine and then broke two last-ditch tackles after cutting back inside at about the 10-yard line to score the touchdown.

Duellman had his fourth 100-yard game of the season, piling up 142 yards on just nine carries. Kroeplin was just shy of the century mark, adding 96 yards on six attempts. Kroeplin completed three of four passes for 106 yards. Ustianowski caught two of them for 81 yards.

Kroeplin was involved in 19 tackles defensively for the Pirates, including a sack. Ustianowski filled his gaps well and finished with 13 tackles, including his key second-quarter sack. Duellman with 12 and Casey Grunseth with 10 also had double-digit tackle totals.

“We started crashing our defensive ends more just to take care of the area between the tight ends a little bit,” Rosemeyer said. “We put our outside linebackers in that gap too. We tried to mix things up defensively just to give them a little different look. We hate to blitz too much, but there was a point in the game where we had to do it. They weren’t going to throw the ball too much and if they did, it wasn’t their thing. We just needed to attack the line of scrimmage.”