By Dan Truttschel
Correspondent
For the first time this season, the East Troy football team has to deal with a bit of adversity.
Now it’s up to the Trojans to bounce back as they move forward.
Host McFarland celebrated the school’s 50th birthday and Homecoming in style Friday night, as it took a 19-0 first-half lead and never looked back in a 22-6 Rock Valley Conference victory.
The loss dropped the Trojans to 3-1 in the RVC and 4-1 overall, while the Spartans improved to 3-2 overall and 2-2 in conference play.
“I could say we played a bad game and I would be 100 percent correct, but I’d like to credit McFarland,” East Troy coach Eric Sulik said. “It was quite an atmosphere for them. They definitely had the home-field advantage going.
“We just didn’t come to play in the first half. It was a very valuable lesson for our kids and coaches as well. I like how we bounced back in the second half, but we only had one touchdown to show for it.”
Sulik said his team may have still been riding the emotional high from a big RVC win over Jefferson the week before.
“That probably did factor in it somewhat, even though we constantly talked about coming back after a big win,” he said. “To be honest, we’re still in the process of turning the culture into a winning program.
“We haven’t had a big win like that against Jefferson in a long time. I guess it’s reasonable to believe we may have had a little bit of a letdown.”
McFarland scored two touchdowns and added a pair of field goals to take the 19-0 halftime lead. Quarterback Clayton Neitzel connected on scoring passes of 43 and 57 yards to Antwon Washington, while Chris Wedel had field goals of 23 and 21 yards.
East Troy avoided the shutout with a touchdown at the 5:04 mark of the third quarter when Joey Dedick scored on a 1-yard plunge. The extra point failed.
Wedel finished the scoring with a 26-yard field goal late in the fourth quarter.
While the loss was disappointing, Sulik said it should serve as a motivator the rest of the way for his team.
And he already saw the results at a spirited practice Monday afternoon.
“We probably had our best Monday practice,” Sulik said. “We had been playing pretty well. I wouldn’t say they were blowout wins, but they were kind of decided after halftime (except for Jefferson).
“It brings us back down to Earth. You have to go through a loss to know what could happen. Now we can use it as an example at practice and during preparation for the rest of the season.”
East Troy finished the game with 117 yards passing and just 79 yards rushing on 25 carries. Brandon Matz had 15 carries for 41 yards, followed by Dedick with 10 carries for 38 yards.
Cody Zaeske led the receiving corps with four catches for 62 yards, followed by Matt Miller with two catches for 38 yards.
McFarland had a solid game plan to slow down the Trojans, Sulik said.
“We were struggling running the football,” he said. “We weren’t really sustaining blocks that well. We were doing a lot of hitting and bouncing.
“We probably had at least eight to nine dropped (passes). It was not a good night catching for us.”
East Troy looks to rebound this week when it hosts Edgerton Friday night in the annual Homecoming contest. The Tide fell 42-19 last week to Jefferson to drop to 2-3 overall.
Sulik knows his team is in for another tough challenge.
“They’re definitely better than they were last year,” he said. “We’ll see. We are dinged up a little bit, but we’ll bounce back, I’m pretty confident of that. They’re a solid outfit. … They’re going to give us all we can handle.”
