Loss ends teams 53-game Rock Valley Conference win streak
By Dan Truttschel
Correspondent
At some point, the Big Foot football team’s Rock Valley Conference win streak was going to come to an end.
But the Chiefs didn’t let go without a fight.
Big Foot fell behind 20-0 Friday night at longtime rival Brodhead-Juda before a furious rally fell just short in a 27-21 loss.
The defeat, which ended a 53-game RVC winning streak, dropped the Chiefs to 7-2 overall and 5-1 in conference play, good for a tie on top of the South Division standings with Brodhead.
Despite the loss, Big Foot coach Greg Enz was pleased to see his team battle until the final seconds ticked off the clock.
“I think they weren’t going to stop fighting until they were told to,” Enz said. “If there was no formal conclusion, I could have seen our team go right back out on the field and continue another series.
“Their performance has a lot to do with their personality, their talent and the fact that they have not dealt with failure much at all.”
Big Foot cut a 13-point deficit to a touchdown with 7:11 left in the contest on an 8-yard touchdown pass from Brett Morris to Chandler Hehr.
But the Cardinals answered with less than two minutes left on a 37-yard touchdown run by Brennan Biscup that rebuilt the lead to 13 at 27-14.
Big Foot wasn’t quite done yet, however.
Morris and Zak Greco connected on a 26-yard touchdown pass with just eight seconds remaining. The Chiefs’ onside kick attempt failed to secure the win for the Cardinals.
Early on, Brodhead controlled the line of scrimmage as it built a 20-0 lead.
“Physical play up front (was the difference),” Enz said. “(They were) consistent (in their) execution in all phases of the game in the first half.”
Big Foot finally got on the scoreboard on the last play of the third quarter when Morris hooked up for a 7-yard touchdown pass to Michael Heidenreich.
Morris finished the game with 222 yards passing, while Heidenreich led the receiving corps with seven catches for 62 yards, followed by Nigel Manning with four catches for 40 yards, Hehr with seven for 37 and Greco with six for 73.
Big Foot managed just 53 yards rushing on 20 carries, so the Chiefs had to go to the air, Enz said.
“We did not run the ball particularly well,” he said. “We continued to have success in the pass game, but our run game to the perimeter with just enough to the inside proved to give us momentum (during our rally).”
Heading to Division 3
Big Foot was bumped to Division 3 for the playoffs and drew a fifth seed, which sends the Chiefs to fourth-seeded Jefferson Friday night for a 7 p.m. Level 1 matchup.
The Chiefs beat Jefferson 28-27 in overtime back in September.
Jefferson averages almost 300 yards a game on the ground, and this game will come down to a battle in the trenches, Enz said.
“We must control the line of scrimmage,” he said. “We have to be able to control their run game and impose our will to run the football in the game.”
Moving up to Division 3 and having to travel to play a team it beat this season didn’t make too many of the Big Foot faithful real happy, Enz said.
“We believe that this may be the motivation we need,” he said. “There was disappointment in getting bumped to Division 3 because the kids are familiar with Division 4 and know that we stack up as one of the best Division 4 teams and programs in the state.
“But the fact that Jefferson openly stated that they were the better team and should have beaten us the first time and the (fact the) selection committee agreed may be just what we needed to again prove to people that we are a good football team.”
The winner Friday advances to a second-round game against either top-seeded Mt. Horeb-Barneveld or eighth-seeded McFarland.
