Underdog turns game around in fourth quarter, wins in double overtime
By Kevin Cunningham
Correspondent
It’s one thing to start a game slow then to figure things out and gain momentum to capture a comeback victory. It’s another when a team is trailing 33-6 in the fourth quarter of a game it needs to win to make the playoffs against a team with a 7-1 record on the season.
The latter is what happened to the Delavan-Darien Comets’ football team Friday night in front of its home crowd. Down by 27 points to Wilmot Union High School, the Comets had a 4-4 record entering the game. If the team lost to the favored, bigger school in Wilmot, a 4-5 record wouldn’t take the Comets to the postseason.
The Comets didn’t just come back from behind to clinch a spot in the playoffs. The team did it in its final game of the season as an underdog, trailing by 27 points in the fourth quarter, and eventually winning the game, 47-40, in double overtime.
“I’ve never seen anything like it in my 27 years I’ve been around football,” Comets head coach Bret St. Arnauld said. “It’s something I’ll probably never see again. You could start feeling the tide turning, even when we were down 16, I believed. I was like, ‘We’re going to win this game. We’re going to come back and win this game.’ We just battled and never gave up.”
First-half deficit
After one quarter, the Panthers led the Comets, 7-0. Then in the second quarter, the Panthers scored three more touchdowns, eventually owning a 26-6 lead at halftime. St. Arnauld said he knew coming into the game that his offense would be able to score, but he wasn’t anticipating the Panthers to score 26 points through two quarters.
After a Comets rushing touchdown with 10 minutes to go, the team trailed, 34-12. The ensuing kickoff took place, and then one play later, linebacker Ethan Cesarz recovered a fumble and took it in for a touchdown from 52 yards away.
“That’s when the tide turned,” St. Arnauld said. “Then we kicked the onside kick and we got it, and that’s when we really got rolling. Once we settled in on Wilmot’s offense, they really struggled moving the ball.”
Heading to overtime
After halftime, the Comets’ defense allowed two touchdowns compared to its 41 points scored. Following the Cesarz defensive score, running back Fabias Shipman ran two touchdowns in, and another was scored off a touchdown pass from Jacob Benzing to Mike Alder.
With just eight seconds left and a 40-34 Comets lead, the Panthers threw a 65-yard touchdown pass to tie the score at 40. St. Arnauld said fate was on his team’s side, and the extra point to give Wilmot the 41-40 lead was no good. The game went to overtime, and in the first series, neither team scored.
High school football’s overtime system is the same as it is in college in that both teams get a chance at the opposition’s 25-yard line. If the score is still tied after both teams have its chances, another overtime takes place.
In the second overtime, the Comets got the ball first and Shipman scored his fourth touchdown of the game. Delavan-Darien led 47-40, then the defense held strong and turned the Panthers over on downs, completing the 27-point comeback with just over 10 minutes left to play.
“It was one of those you-had-to-be-there–to-understand-it kind of moments,” St. Arnauld said. “You can read about it and hear about it from another person, but you had to be there in person to really grasp what it was like. It was one of those moments in life that you’d be able to tell for years and years to come.”
To playoffs
The win over Wilmot Union didn’t guarantee the Comets a spot in the playoffs, but it ended up being enough, as on Saturday, the team found out it had gotten in as an 8-seed, facing off against No. 1-seeded Kewaskum in the first round of the playoffs Friday.
There are four different regions in the playoff bracket featuring 32 teams, each seeded one through eight in the four separate regions. The first round matchup is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. Friday at Kewaskum High School.
Kewaskum will enter the game with a 9-0 record on the season, defeating each of its opponents by at least 15 points. In its two final games of the season, Kewaskum defeated its opponents by a combined score of 79-0.
“We’re battle-tested,” St. Arnauld said. “I think that’s going to help us in the playoffs. They didn’t show us much respect, but that’s OK. We have a lot to prove to a lot of people. (Our players) are excited, and I can’t blame them. I would be too. I can’t even imagine what they’re going through.”
In Delavan-Darien’s schedule, the team had to play Southern Lakes Conference opponents a majority of the season. In the Southern Lakes Conference, four teams other than the Comets will take their chances in the Division III state tournament, giving the conference five total playoff teams in 2015.
