Thursday, September 19, 2024
Serving Algoma, Casco, Kewaunee, Luxemburg and all of Kewaunee County
By Josh Staloch
Sports Editor
KEWASKUM –The Luxemburg-Casco High football team will be heading to Madison next Thursday to play for the Division 4 State Championship after defeating Catholic Memorial 23-21 on Friday night in a Level 4 showdown.
For the second Friday in a row, senior Trace Schoenebeck came through in dramatic fashion for L-C late in the game with a shot at the next round on the line.
Last week, he pulled down a deep ball from quarterback Max Ronsman in the end zone for the go-ahead score.
Against Catholic Memorial, on his 18th birthday and with his team down by one point with less than three seconds left on the clock, Schoenebeck calmly split the uprights from 24-yards out to put the Spartans ahead.
“I just stayed calm and trusted what we’ve been practicing all year long,” Schoenebeck said when asked what was going through his head when he was lining up the game winner before the snap. “I knew I could get it.
It was a grueling back-and-forth battle and the Crusaders took the lead with six minutes to play after an L-C turnover led to an easy score for Catholic Memorial.
“They do not give up,” said L-C Head Coach Neil Seering, who was named the Green Bay Packers High School Coach of the Week earlier this week. “The culture of brotherhood that we’ve been preaching to them, it’s written on our hearts. One thing that I can tell about this team, faith has brought us to this point. And that last drive tonight, what happened last week, it’s all about having faith in each other.”
The Spartans got one more shot at it with under two minutes remaining, beginning from their own eight-yard line against a fired up Crusaders defense.
Ronsman completed a pass to Brady Massey on first down and then hit Schoenebeck with another on-target throw to move the chains.
Up next, with less than a minute to play and the offensive line giving it everything they had, Ronsman threw another beautiful pass to Schley at the sideline to get the Spartans well into Catholic Memorial territory, where a completion to Chris VanderWielen, along with a Crusaders’ penalty, set the stage for the big finish from Schoenebeck.
“You know, after football’s done, they’re going to have to be great young men, then husbands and fathers and people who work and live in the community,” Coach Seering said after the win. “I couldn’t have asked for a better group of kids, a better group of coaches, to be sharing this with. They deserve all the credit, I’m just happy to be a part of it. ”
DE FOREST – Kewaunee’s tremendous run through the playoffs came to a close on Friday in Level 4 with a 34-28 loss to Darlington.
The Storm were up 28-20 at halftime after scoring 14 in both the first and second quarters but couldn’t find a way to score on the Red Birds in the second half.
