If the saying, “Defense wins Championships” holds true, the Owen-Withee Blackhawks took a huge step in their journey toward Wisconsin Football’s pinnacle of success. The Blackhawks avenged an earlier season loss to the Assumption Royals by throttling their high-powered option offense in a 26-8 slugfest in Wisconsin Rapids on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.
The Hawks wasted little time getting on the scoreboard as Talon Mueller took the first play from scrimmage 70 yards to the house on a beautifully executed trap play up the middle. Clay Mueller added the two-point conversion to put the Hawks up 8-0. The Royals would answer that score on their following drive with a 17-yard play-action pass finding a wide-open receiver in the endzone. The two-point conversion was good, knotting the score at eight apiece.
From that point on it was a dogfight, with each team trading punches to see who was going to blink first! The Hawks had a chance at the end of the first half to try a long field-goal, but a botched snap left the score 8-8 at the intermission.
The third quarter is when the Hawks asserted their will and you could just feel the momentum of the game switch in their favor. Crandon Dallman put the opening kick of the second half into the endzone and on the first play from scrimmage the Hawks recovered a fumble to give them excellent field position. Unfortunately, the Hawks failed to convert on a fourth down play, and came away empty but that is when the defense made it happen. The Royals were forced to punt into a strong wind on a three and out giving the Hawks great field position. With the inside/outside running of the Mueller duo in high gear and the offensive line playing at a high level, the Hawks rang up six points on the scoreboard on six plays with Clay capping the drive off on a six-yard run. The Hawks defense forced another three and out on the Royals next possession and with another poor punt the Blackhawks capitalized on a 39-yard run by Clay putting the Hawks up 20-8.
The Blackhawks put the final nails in the coffin in the fourth quarter by running off 6 plus minutes on the clock offensively and defensively capped it off with n 50-yard interception returned for a touchdown by Clay.
A great team effort, gave the Hawks this signature win and will now put them into Level III of the play-offs against the number one seed team in our bracket Valley Christian. Game time is Saturday, October 31 at 1 p.m.