It wasn’t the ideal start for the Shawano Community High School football team.
The Hawks gave up a defensive touchdown to Menasha in the first two minutes, and then the Bluejays’ offense went to work. Menasha scored on four of six first-half drives to mount a 35-point halftime lead as the Bluejays rolled to a 57-0 victory in Bay Conference action Friday at Calder Stadium.
“I think we know Menasha’s a really good team,” Shawano coach Alan Tomow said. “Obviously, we want to do more and have more success against them, but it’s going to get better for us. We’ve seen what the top teams are like and that’s what we want to be like.”
Shawano (0-2, 0-1 Bay Conference) didn’t cross midfield until late in the third quarter and that was the lone time in Menasha territory. The Hawks finished with just 102 total yards. Menasha (2-0, 2-0 Bay) racked up 392 yards, 210 through the air and 182 on the ground.
The fast start was key for Menasha.
“It’s always nice to get on top right away,” Menasha coach Jeramie Korth said. “We’ve been in games before where we’ve stalled against teams that we thought we could get out of the gates quick with, so it was nice to get a fast start. We had a little lull there and didn’t finish a few drives, but then picked it up there and played some opportunistic defense.”
Menasha, the defending Division 2 state champion, has outscored its opponents 98-0 in the first two games.
Despite the shutout loss, Tomow took away a few positives from the game.
“I wanted us to do what we did for spurts in the first half and what we were able to do in the second half — run the football and just be able to get good assignment football in our run game,” Tomow said. “We thought we could do that. We did, and Kien (Moorman) ran hard all the way through. It’s just having to play both ways with multiple guys wore on us.”
On the third play of the game and the Hawks’ offense facing a third-and-8, quarterback Daniel Hanauer threw a swing pass to Jared Tavernier. The lateral was picked up by an alert by Trent Ingalls and run in 37 yards for a touchdown.
“I’ll have to look at the film, but I’m not sure that was a backwards pass – either way Menasha is a very good football team and you can’t afford to make those types of mistakes to start games,” Tomow said. “We can’t dig ourselves any deeper. They’re good enough, they don’t need any help from us.”
After a Shawano three-and-out, Menasha needed just four plays on offense to tally another score. Running back Jadin Sell took a pitch and raced 60 yards, shedding multiple tackle attempts by Shawano defenders, to the end zone. The touchdown made it 14-0 just 5:49 into the game.
Shawano got the ball back and Hanauer threw an interception on a deflection that was hauled in by Menasha linebacker Jordan Duwe. With the Bluejays starting at their own 47, it took just a few plays, including a 24-yard reception by Parker Wittmann, to get down to the 1. From there, Sell punched in his second touchdown of the game with 2:08 left in the first quarter.
Down 21-0, Shawano had a promising drive early in the second quarter, but a false start and sack stalled the Hawks.
Menasha added two touchdowns in a matter of 1 minute, 9 seconds in the final two minutes of the half to take a 35-0 lead into the locker room.
With a running clock to start the second half, Menasha went the length of the field on its first drive as Sell scored his fourth touchdown of the game to make it 42-0. Tyler Szews added his second touchdown and it was 49-0 in the third.
Shawano had its most promising drive early in the fourth. The Hawks worked the ball down to the Menasha 27, where Hanauer was stripped of the ball and Ingalls ran in his second score of the game, this time from 69 yards. A 2-point conversion brought it to 57-0.
Hanauer was 10 for 22 passing for 47 yards and two interceptions. Moorman led the way rushing for Shawano with 54 yards on 16 carries. Dylan Sumnicht was the team’s top receiver with six catches for 30 yards.
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