Football: Witt-Birn runs past Iola-Scandinavia

WITTENBERG — The Wittenberg-Birnamwood High School football team earned a key Central Wisconsin Conference-Large Division win over Iola-Scandinavia on Friday, rushing for three scores in an 18-8 victory.

Coming off a 42-0 loss to Amherst in week three, Witt-Birn was hoping to get off to a fast start. The Chargers did just that, putting together an eight-play, 62-yard touchdown drive to open the game.

The hosts ran the ball on every play of the drive, with freshman David Gauderman and junior Austin Gibson sharing the carries.

After Gibson converted a 4th-and-2 run, Gauderman capped the drive with a 2-yard rushing score.

“It was really fun to get some payback for last week,” said Gauderman, who finished with 82 rushing yards on 20 carries.

“We have high expectations to make the playoffs this year and maybe make a deep playoff run, hopefully.”

Gauderman’s touchdown turned out to be the only points of a quick first half.

Witt-Birn put together a 17-play drive on its second possession of the contest, but eventually was stopped on a fourth down.

The Chargers’ aggressive defense made life tough on the Iola-Scandinavia offense all night. After forcing a three-and-out to start the game, Witt-Birn stopped the visitors on fourth down on the second drive.

A key moment in the game came in the waning seconds of the first half. The Thunderbirds were on their best drive of the half, but ran out of time after the Chargers stuffed a running play at the 3-yard line.

The momentum carried over into the second half, as Witt-Birn forced and recovered a fumble on the opening kickoff, and turned the miscue into points.

The Chargers again ran the ball on every play, with Gibson capping the drive with a 3-yard touchdown run to bump the lead to 12-0.

“That was a big momentum changer. When we get that fumble on the kickoff, we really needed to score that touchdown,” said Gibson.

Iola-Scandinavia had a quick answer, as a busted play turned into a long run to set up a 29-yard touchdown run to cut the deficit to just four.

Witt-Birn responded with an 11-play and nearly six-minute touchdown drive, running on each play.

Gauderman and Gibson led the Chargers down the field before senior quarterback Logan Balliett broke free for a 24-yard touchdown for the game’s final score.

“That (answering the touchdown by Iola-Scandinavia) was huge,” said Witt-Birn coach Bernard Holsey. “It shows the maturity of our guys and how they just said, ‘You know what, that happened but we’re going to shake it off and we’re going to relax, go play and score.’”

“It was really big. I think that touchdown really like put them in the coffin,” said Gibson, who finished with 96 rushing yards on 23 carries.

Balliett carried the ball 11 times, breaking off a couple nice runs to finish with 91 rushing yards. He attempted just six passes on the night, completing three of them for 22 yards.

Balliett completed back-to-back passes midway through the fourth quarter, with the first pass to sophomore Ben Wesolowski picking up a 3rd-and-5 attempt.

Witt-Birn’s defense carried the team to the final whistle, stopping the next possession on fourth down before sophomore Jordan Landowski picked off a pass to end the next drive.

Senior Simon Stewart recorded a big sack on the next Thunderbird drive, forcing the visitors into a 4th-and-long, which they did not convert.

After a Witt-Birn fumble gave Iola-Scandinavia great field position, junior David Reid recorded a sack on first down to again force a long fourth-down play that the visitors couldn’t convert.

Witt-Birn’s offense was unable to run out the entire clock, but the defense forced an incompletion on the final play to seal the solid bounce back win.

“Obviously, I was upset after the game (against Amherst) but the biggest thing I told them was, ‘You think about all the good things we did.’ We didn’t focus on the negative things. We talked about the good things we did and talked about how if we changed these little things, how that game could have been different,” said Holsey. “We just had to work a little harder and pay attention to detail a little bit more.”

The Chargers improved to 3-1 overall and 1-1 in the CWC-Large. Witt-Birn will hit the road in week five, taking on Pacelli at Goerke Field in Stevens Point on Friday.

Iola-Scandinavia 0 0 8 0

Wittenberg-Birnamwood 6 0 12 0

First quarter

WB: David Gauderman 2-yard run (run failed), 7:49

Third quarter

WB: Austin Gibson 3-yard run (pass failed), 9:19

IS: Will Cady 29-yard run (Cady pass from Parker Prahl), 8:25

WB: Logan Balliett 24-yard run (run failed), 2:26

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