BY JOSH STALOCH
SPORTS EDITOR
OCONTO – Behind a stout defense and an overwhelming running game, the Kewaunee High football team took care of Packerland Conference business Friday night, defeating the Oconto Blue Devils 34-6 to improve to 4-0 on the year overall, 2-0 in conference play.
“I think we’ve cleaned up a few things from last week coming into this week,” said Storm head coach Randy Charles. “We were a little bit cleaner on our assignments, we had a few missed blocks last week. Even this week we missed a couple, we’ve still got some work to do. Part of that comes down to Oconto being a very aggressive team, they always play us tough and they did again tonight.”
The Storm would have to overcome a rocky start Friday when, on the first drive of the game, a pass from quarterback Tom Stangel went off the hands of Maddix Mueller and was intercepted by the Oconto defense.
Kewaunee’s defense held pat though and Oconto turned the ball over on downs after failing to convert on fourth.
When the Storm got the ball back, they went right to work on the ground. The one-two-punch of Owen Carlson and DJ Echols in the backfield had the Oconto defense on its toes the whole series. Stangel also made a nice pass to Echols for a first down in the series, which culminated in a touchdown by Carlson from a yard out to give the visitors a 7-0 early edge.
A nice kickoff return by Ethan Wusterbarth gave the Blue Devils good field position to start their ensuing drive.
The home team was moving the ball in Kewaunee territory and clearly picking up some momentum when Mueller picked off a Blue Devils pass that would put them in the red zone.
Kewaunee went back to the ground game and Carlson, who finished the contest with 174 yards on 23 carries for three touchdowns, along with the Kewaunee front line, battered the Oconto defense over the course of a long drove that ended with Carlson punching it in from one yard out again.
The second half of the game went much like the first. Kewaunee’s defense refused to allow the home team offense to get anything going while the Storm’s offensive unit was just too tough to slow down. Kewaunee posted 329 yards of offense while its defense allowed only 192 yards. The Storm picked up 22 first downs and allowed only 10.
“I definitely think our run game, with our offensive line and DJ and Carlson is a strength we can lean on when we need to. But I definitely like to think we’ve got a few other aspects to our game. The passing attack is starting to come around, Tom is starting to make plays for us when we need him to. The offense is coming around. Some of our guys are still getting used to things but it’s starting to work.”
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