Published: Oct. 19, 2013
By NICHOLAS DETTMANN
Daily News Sports Editor
Hartford Union has struggled to finish games and drives.
When it had to at a crucial point, the Orioles finally
finished the job.
The Orioles held on for a 28-13 victory Friday against West
Bend East to send their 21 seniors into the cold night with a victory.
“The seniors really worked hard all year,” Orioles coach Tom
Noennig said. “I could never say anything bad about their effort, their
dedication and how hard they worked.
“I was just hoping that we would get that fourth win (in
conference) this year and get in the playoffs.”
As for East (0-9, 0-7), it is the Suns’ second straight winless
season and 18th loss in a row, dating back to the 2011 playoffs.
Faced with the chance to put the game away, the Orioles
(3-6, 3-4) came through.
Midway through the fourth quarter, the Orioles got the ball
after East scored a touchdown, converting on fourth-and-goal, to make it 21-13
in favor of Hartford.
When they got the ball, the Orioles rode the legs of senior
running back Bryce Semrad, who managed 44 yards on five carries in the first
half — 38 on his first two carries.
In the second half, Semrad was tough to stop.
Semrad used his elusiveness to make cuts and mixed it with
some power running and wound up with 117 yards on 18 carries for the game.
On the crucial fourth-quarter drive, Semrad had 21 yards
rushing on three carries, but they were the first three plays of the drive.
Hartford used that momentum shift to its advantage.
Ethan Willer also had a couple key rushing plays, and Tommy
Noennig completed a 4-yard pass to Jordan Jewell for a touchdown and a 28-13
lead with 2:47 left in the game.
The drive covered 67 yards in nine plays and took 4 minutes,
35 seconds off the game clock, leaving the Suns just 2:47 on the clock and down
two scores.
“It was huge,” Tom Noennig said. “The last two weeks we
struggled finishing football games. That was our message all week was to finish
every play, finish every drive and finish the game. I was happy we were able to
finish that drive off.”
After the point-after attempt, an East player and a Hartford
player had a small scuffle, but only East was penalized 15 yards. It was one of
many penalties in the game and given the circumstances with both teams, both
coaches weren’t terribly surprised.
Afterward both coaches had a cordial chat at midfield about
the sloppy play and had no hard feelings.
“For the most part, I was proud of my guys for not
retaliating as much,” Noennig said. “It’s hard when you’ve got two teams that
have had rough years. That happens.”
Six personal foul penalties were called, including having
one player from East being ejected for unsportsmanlike conduct. For the game,
the teams combined for 17 penalties and 178 yards.
“The chipiness, that’s not the way we play football,” East
coach Scott Mindel said. “That’s not the way we coach our kids. It was the
result of a little bit of frustration.”
“Football is an emotional game,” he added. “Sometimes those
things happen.”
Noennig and Hartford will wonder “what if” this offseason as
the Orioles had chances to upend Watertown and Oconomowoc, but came up short. A
big reason for that was turnovers.
However, he liked how his players recovered in just enough
time to make a season-ending victory a bit satisfying despite falling short of
the goal to reach the playoffs.
“Our JV group is a pretty good group of guys,” Noennig said.
“We’ve got some pretty talented underclassmen coming up. The juniors got a lot
of experience this year and I think the seniors did a pretty good job of
leading them.”
The Orioles started the season 0-4, which included losses to
Homestead and Germantown in nonconference play.
“Unfortunately this is the only way, unless you take home
the gold ball, you win your last game,” Noennig said. “It’s good for the kids.
It’s good for the coaches.”
After a decade-long run of making the playoffs, the Orioles
are not playoff bound for the second straight year.
“We just got to get stronger,” Noennig said, adding a
victory in the season finale can bode well going into the offseason.
As for East, the Suns are ready to move forward.
“I think we played probably some of the most aggressive
football all year,” Mindel said. “It just came down to a couple plays where
they were better than us and that’s what showed up on the scoreboard.”
No comments:
Post a Comment