The Pirates hit another big ….
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.”
