By Dan Truttschel
Correspondent
The last remaining hope for the East Troy High School football team to secure a playoff berth was a win Friday night at Jefferson.
Unfortunately for the Trojans, the Eagles had no intentions of letting that happen.
Jefferson blitzed East Troy for 20 unanswered first-quarter points and cruised to a 48-27 Rock Valley Conference victory. The loss ended the Trojans’ 2014 campaign at 2-7 overall and 2-4 in the RVC.
A victory would have moved East Troy to .500 in conference and into a potential playoff berth. Jefferson improved to 7-2 overall and 5-1 in conference, good for a co-championship in the North Division with Evansville-Albany.
Jefferson earned a No. 3 seed in Division 3 and will host Big Foot in a first-round matchup this week.
Seeing the season come to an end was disappointing, East Troy coach Eric Sulik said.
“We fell short of our goals of qualifying for the playoffs, winning conference and winning a playoff game,” he said. “Injuries, lack of depth and execution errors played a big role in our dismal record this season.
“I take full responsibility for not getting our team ready for the season.”
The Eagles scored first on a 15-yard touchdown run, followed by runs of 9, 16 and 1 yards before the Trojans could get on the board.
It wasn’t difficult to figure out what went wrong early, Sulik said.
“(We had an) early turnover on the kickoff return that didn’t help our start,” he said. “We had a very difficult time moving the ball on offense and stopping them on defense.”
Senior quarterback Charlie Kutschenreuter, who scored four times Friday to bring his season total to nine passing and nine rushing, connected on a 7-yard touchdown pass to Will Iloncaie with 49 seconds left in the opening half.
The score cut the deficit 20 points by halftime, but Jefferson came out of the intermission firing offensively once again.
The Eagles put together scoring plays of 41 and 25 yards by midway through the third quarter to rebuild their led to 41-6.
East Troy just couldn’t figure out how to slow down Jefferson’s attack, Sulik said.
“They have the best running (game) in the league that runs behind the best offensive line in the league,” he said. “(They are) effective, physical and well coache.”
East Troy added three second-half touchdowns to close out the scoring, and Kutschenreuter had a hand in all three.
Kutschenreuter, who closed the year with 964 yards passing and 801 yards rushing, scored on a 4-yard touchdown, and then connected on a 20-yard scoring pass to Noah Nyffeler. He added a 6-yard run late in the contest.
Sulik wasn’t surprised his quarterback kept fighting to the end.
“Charlie plays hard no matter what the circumstances,” he said.
For the game, Kutschenreuter led the Trojans with 188 yards passing and 83 rushing. Jacob Remza had a team-high three receptions for 85 yards.
Saying good-bye to seniors
While disappointed in how the fall came to an end, Sulik thanked the team’s senior class for their efforts.
“(They are a) nice group of young men (who) played hard and stayed positive in the roughest time in our program,” he said. “I am proud of each and every one of them.”
Moving forward, work on 2015 will begin soon, as East Troy tries to rebound – and that’s going to take a total team effort.
“(We need an) improved off-season strength and conditioning program and more ‘buy in’ from parents and players,” Sulik said. “We also need renewed enthusiasm, improved discipline and changes schematically in certain areas.”
Results of All-RVC voting and a statistical wrap up will appear in a future edition.
