Sophomore quarterback Brandon Vlcko and the SPASH football team will travel to play Holmen in a nonconference game Friday, Sept. 27. (John Kemmeter photo)

Portage County Gazette

By John Kemmeter

With the second half of the high school football season underway, the Pacelli Catholic High School football team will host Rosholt in its Homecoming Game at 7 p.m. at Community Stadium at Goerke Field Friday, Sept. 27.

Sixth-ranked Almond-Bancroft will take on Cambria-Friesland in a nonconference game for Homecoming, second-ranked Amherst will visit Bonduel, and Stevens Point Area Senior High School (SPASH) has a nonconference game at Holmen at 7 p.m. Friday.

Pacelli and Rosholt

In a key CWC Small battle, Pacelli (1-4, 0-1) and Rosholt (2-3, 1-1) will play Friday night for the first time since the 2012 WIAA Division 6 Level 2 Playoffs, when Rosholt won 22-14 at Community Stadium at Goerke Field, in the final game for longtime Pacelli head coach Bob Raczek.

“It’s a big week for our kids, Homecoming week, and they’ve got to stay focused through all of that other stuff that’s going on outside of school and during school,” said Pacelli football head coach Drew Nelson. “Rosholt’s got some pretty talented kids; most of our kids know their kids, so it should be a good game on Friday night.

“And hopefully we have a chance to be successful,” he said.

“It’s another conference game, and we need the win,” said Rosholt football co-head coach Mark McHugh. “And Pacelli’s going to go into that game feeling the same way.

“The kids are excited, they get a chance to play on one of the nicest fields in the state,” he said. “As far as turf, it will be their first experience with that, and they’re excited to play under the lights at Goerke.”

Both teams need three conference wins this season to secure a playoff berth, as Pacelli has Rosholt, Menominee Indian (1-2), Almond-Bancroft (3-0) and Wild Rose (0-2) left in conference play, while Rosholt has Pacelli, Pittsville (2-1) and Wild Rose to play in conference.

“They’ve got a good quarterback in (Drew) Kedrowicz, and they use their running back (Brycen) Cashin a lot, moving him around a lot offensively,” said McHugh. “So we’re going to have to dig deep and find a way to control him and keep Kedrowicz in check.

“And we told our kids this week, ‘it’s gut check time, you can continue to fight and go forward and get some wins in conference,’ and we think our kids are up to the task,” he said. “We’ve got to control that line of scrimmage, if we can control both sides of the line of scrimmage, we’ve got ourselves a pretty good chance, and I think we can win that game.”

“They like to run the ball, and they’ve got a pretty talented quarterback (Isaac Cychosz) that will sit back there and pick you apart too,” said Nelson. “And they’ve definitely got athletes all over that we’re going to have to account for and know where certain people are at certain times.

“It’s been a fun team to watch them on film, just trying to get ready and put our kids in a place to be successful,” he said.

Almond-Bancroft

Coming off a 28-6 win over Rosholt to improve to 3-0 in the CWC Small, Almond (5-0) will return to nonconference action when it hosts Cambria-Friesland (3-2) for Homecoming.

“We get to celebrate Homecoming, and it’s a fun week for the kids, but we’ve got Cambria-Friesland coming in,” said Almond-Bancroft football head coach Andrew Bradley. “We played them a few years back and have a little bit of familiarity with them, and they’re a good program and a tough team.

“It’s a nice to play someone different now and then, and we have not seen them for a while, so it’ll be fun,” he said.

In the last meeting between the teams, Almond won 43-6 at Cambria-Friesland in the 2014 Division 7 Level 3 Playoffs to earn a trip to the State Semifinals, while Cambria has wins over Dodgeland (34-27), Wild Rose (53-8) and Deerfield (44-6) this season, and losses to Pardeeville (28-22) and Johnson Creek (34-7).

“They’re a pretty balanced team and they have a nice running back,” said Bradley. “They’re a pretty senior-laden team, and it brings a little different attack to us, a little more pulling and trapping and some misdirection stuff that we have to stay home for.

“But defensively, they’re similar to what we’ve seen in the past with them,” he said. “But again, it’s up to us, we’re going to continue to work on us getting better and focus on us improving, and continue to improve though the season.”

Amherst

The second-ranked Falcons will be on the road for the fifth time in six games this season when they travel to play at Bonduel (4-1, 2-1) Friday.

“They’ve got a nice team,” said Amherst football head coach Mark Lusic. “They just want to pound the ball, and we’re going to have to be good on the edge.

“They run a Wing T, and if we don’t bring it, it’s going to be a long night for us,” he said. “They’ve got a couple of receivers who complement the running game pretty well, so we’re going to have to play much better than we’ve been playing the last couple of weeks.”

Bonduel lost 28-14 at Division 6 eighth-ranked Manawa (4-1) in Week 3, and bounced back with a 40-0 win over Weyauwega-Fremont in Week 4, then won 33-26 at reigning Division 6 State Champion Iola-Scandinavia (1-4, 1-2) last week.

“We made too many mistakes last week, and the score doesn’t show that, but we did,” said Lusic, whose team won 44-0 over Weyauwega last week, and beat Bonduel 21-13 at home last year. “It’s stuff that we’ve been trying to fix for all year basically, and we’re still making them, and we’ve got to clean that stuff up.

“We’ve got a couple of tough games coming up down the stretch here, and we’re going to have to play better and just do things right and be more consistent,” he said.

SPASH

Following a 28-3 loss at home to Marshfield last week, SPASH (0-5, 0-5) will hit the road for a nonconference game at Holmen (4-1) Friday night.

Holmen reached the WIAA Division 2 Playoffs last season for the 10th year in a row, and opened this season with a 27-7 win over Chippewa Falls and a 32-16 loss to Menomonie to start 1-1, then followed with wins over West Salem (25-7), La Crosse Central (41-18) and Tomah (49-0).