Football team misses playoff berth
By Dan Truttschel
Sports Correspondent
The immediate emotion following Friday night’s Rock Valley Conference contest at Evansville-Albany for the East Troy High School football team was disappointment.
And that was to be expected, because the Trojans’ 41-21 loss eliminated them from a post-season berth.
But with a young team that at times Friday included just three seniors on offense and none on defense, the future certainly looks to be a bright one.
East Troy held a 14-13 lead early in the second quarter before Evansville scored four unanswered touchdowns to take control.
“Our goals were to qualify for the WIAA playoffs and to win a conference championship, and we didn’t accomplish either,” East Troy coach Eric Sulik said.
“Our players were disappointed because we felt if we played our best football we could at least accomplish a playoff berth. Unfortunately, we didn’t play well enough to win.”
Sulik said his young players gained plenty from not only Friday night but the season as a whole.
“Every week, I think our young players learn a lot,” he said. “I hope they understood how difficult the loss was for our senior group and will work hard this off-season to avoid this disappointment next fall.
“I hope they also understand how difficult it is to win conference games in the Rock Valley.”
East Troy took its last lead of the night on a 5-yard run by backup quarterback Charlie Kutschenreuter, who filled in for the injured Brandon Matz.
At that point, things were looking up on the East Troy sidelines.
“Charlie’s touchdown gave us a lot of confidence that we could play with Evansville-Albany,” Sulik said. “Charlie is our backup quarterback, so I think it was a big confidence booster for our offense.”
Unfortunately, those positive thoughts didn’t last long, as Evansville took the lead before halftime and built on that with three more second-half touchdowns.
“We just had a hard time stopping them on third down,” Sulik said. “They also passed the ball very well and (we) had some blown coverage assignments.”
Kutschenreuter closed out the scoring for East Troy with a 68-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter.
East Troy jumped out in front less than five minutes into the contest on a 3-yard scoring pass from Kutschenreuter to Sam Eckert.
Evansville answered with two touchdowns of its own to take a 13-7 advantage after the opening period.
For the game, Kutschenreuter completed all four passing attempts for 85 yards. Zach Lamb led the rushing attack with 24 carries for 116 yards, while Eckert caught four passes for 85 yards.
Season finale this week
East Troy wraps up its season this Friday night when it hosts Whitewater in a 7 p.m. RVC contest.
The Whippets enter the last week at 4-4 overall after a 33-6 loss last week to Jefferson.
Even though his team can’t advance to the post-season, Sulik said there still is plenty to play for when the Trojans tee it up for the last time in 2013.
“We want to beat Whitewater, move up a place in the final (conference) standings, finish strong, gain momentum for 2014 and put our senior group out as winners,” he said.
