Senior running back Reese Anderson and the Rosholt High School football team will play at Division 6 ninth-ranked Coleman to close out the regular season. (John Kemmeter photo)

Portage County Gazette

By John Kemmeter

The second-ranked Amherst High School football team will look to win the Central Wisconsin Conference (CWC)-Large Title outright when it plays at reigning WIAA Division 6 State Champion Iola-Scandinavia Friday, Oct. 18, in the final week of the 2019 high school football season.

Sixth-ranked Almond-Bancroft will host seventh-ranked Johnson Creek in a battle of Top 10 teams in Division 7, playoff-bound Rosholt visits Division 6 ninth-ranked Coleman in a nonconference game, Pacelli looks to keep its playoff hopes alive at Wild Rose, and Stevens Point Area Senior High School (SPASH) will close out its season at D.C. Everest.

Amherst

After having their string of four consecutive Conference Titles end last year with a 31-15 loss at home to Iola-Scandinavia in the regular-season finale, Division 5 second-ranked Amherst (7-0, 5-0) can clinch the CWC-Large Title outright with a win Friday night at Iola (2-6, 1-4).

“It’s the last time we’re going to play Iola, at least in the regular season for a while here, because of conference realignment,” said Amherst football head coach Mark Lusic. “It’s been a pretty good rivalry over the last 10 years, and we’re excited to have a chance to control our own destiny, and hopefully win the conference outright.”

Iola went 14-0 last season on the way to winning the CWC-Large Title and the Division 6 State Championship, but will miss the playoffs this season, as it fell 16-13 at home to Shiocton last week for its fourth conference loss in a row.

Amherst clinched a share of its seventh Conference Title in nine years with a 36-7 win at Division 6 seventh-ranked Manawa (6-2, 4-1) Oct. 4, and can finish unbeaten in the regular season for the fourth time under Lusic (2012, 2014, 2015) with a win Friday night.

“They lost a lot of pieces from last year, there’s no doubt about that,” said Lusic. “Their quarterback (sophomore Parker Prahl) is a pretty good talent, and they’ve got some receiver on the edge that make plays, so we’re going to have our hands full defensively.

“They’re a quick-strike team and they can score at any time, so we’re just going to have to do our job of ‘one play at a time’ and limit the big play,” he said. “And I want to just continue to get better and keep progressing, and just take care of business on Friday and get ready for the playoffs.”

Almond-Bancroft

Almond (8-0, 5-0) won the CWC-Small Title outright with a victory at Pacelli last week, and will also look to finish unbeaten in the regular season when it hosts Johnson Creek (7-1, 4-1) in a nonconference game at 7 p.m. Friday.

“It’ll be a good matchup,” said Almond-Bancroft football head coach Andrew Bradley. “Going in, I knew they were going to be good, and you wonder if you really want to play a team like that in Week 9.

“But I’m happier than heck that we’re here 8-0, and now we get to go challenge ourselves against a very good opponent, and get us ready for the playoffs,” he said.

Johnson Creek advanced to Level 2 of the WIAA Division 7 Playoffs last year and got off to a 7-0 start this season, before it lost 27-7 at home last week to Division 7 fifth-ranked Oshkosh Lourdes (8-0, 4-0) in a battle for the lead in the Trailways-Small Conference.

“The playoffs really start for us on Friday against Johnson Creek,” said Bradley. “We need to win that one to ensure a high seed and more home games, so that will be like a playoff game for us.”

Rosholt

Rosholt (4-4, 3-2) wrapped up a playoff berth last week with a 51-0 win at home over Wild Rose, and will close the regular season with a nonconference game at Coleman (6-2, 4-0) at 7 p.m. Friday.

Coleman won the MONLPC-Small Conference this season with a 4-0 record to clinch a spot in the playoffs for the 17th time in the last 19 years, after it reached Level 2 of the WIAA Division 6 Playoffs last year.

Pacelli

Pacelli (2-6, 1-3) will look for a win at Wild Rose (0-8, 0-4) at 7 p.m. Friday, and hope that it can sneak into the playoffs with a 2-3 conference record.

“You never know what’s going to happens across the state that night,” said Pacelli football head coach Drew Nelson. “That 2-3 record in conference, the stuff I’ve been reading, we’ve got a long shot, but there’s a shot there still.

“So we’ve got something to play for,” he said.

This week, WisSports.net projected that 22 teams with a conference record under .500 this season will reach the playoffs, while Wild Rose has been outscored by a 376-26 margin in 2019.

“I told the guys when we got to the breakdown at the end (after the game against Almond-Bancroft last week), ‘we have to see the effort and the finish, and it’s got to come from inside,’” said Nelson. “‘And if we have to run one play this week in practice just to hammer home the effort and the intensity, that’s what we’re going to have to do.’

“And we’ll get them ready for Friday night,” he said.

SPASH

Coming off of its first win of the season, SPASH (1-7, 1-6) will try to end its season on a winning streak when it travels to face D.C. Everest (4-4, 3-4) at 7 p.m. Friday.

“D.C. Everest is a good football club, and right now they’ve got a ton of motivation,” said SPASH football head coach Pete McAdams. “They beat us and they’re in the playoffs, it’s that simple for them.

“It’s never an easy place to go play, but we’ve been saying this all year long, ‘it doesn’t really matter who are opponent is, we’ve got to go out there and play our best football,’” he said. “And for the first time in my memory, we’re going into Game 9 already knowing that it’s our last game.”

The Panthers racked up season highs in total yards (302) and points in a 33-14 win at home over Wausau West last week, while Everest lost 20-19 at Marshfield (5-3, 5-3) last week to set up a must-win game in its regular-season finale.

“The thing that we’ve been preaching all week long is, ‘to leave everything you have on the field,’” said McAdams. “There’s a quote by Owen Marecic, in 2009 he was the only two-way football player in Division 1 and he played for Stanford University, and we’ve got that quote hanging up in our locker room and in our strength and fitness center, and it says, ‘today give all that you have, for what you keep inside you lose forever.’

“And so I think, as we approach this last game and as we approach our last practices, we’re going to do just that,” he said. “And if we give everything we have and leave everything we have out on that field, I think our kids will be pretty happy.”