The Bonduel High School football team lost to Cedar Grove-Belgium 50-7 in the WIAA Division 5 Level 2 playoff game Friday night at Rush Niles Memorial Field.
The Bears, the No. 5 seed, fell behind early to the top-seeded Rockets, but stayed in the game for most of the first half. Fourteen quick points before halftime on an unlikely sequence of plays, though, put Bonduel in a hole it couldn’t escape.
The Rockets took a 12-0 lead in the first quarter on a 9-yard touchdown throw from quarterback Drew Emperley to Logan Peterson and a 69-yard punt return by Aaron Chier.
“We started the game, I don’t know if we were a little tight or what, but it wasn’t our football,” Bonduel coach James Westrich said. “Our kids prepared well this week. Just like the last four or five weeks, attention to detail was good. We just came out flat for whatever reason.”
Bonduel responded with 2:49 left in the first quarter, getting a 59-yard touchdown run from Hunter VanderLinden. VanderLinden, a 5-foot-10, 190-pound junior running back, finished with 19 carries for 140 yards.
Regaining the momentum, the Bears forced the Rockets to punt on their next two possessions. A running-into-kicker penalty forced the second punt to be kicked again, which resulted in a fumble on the return. Cedar Grove-Belgium recovered the ball at the Bonduel 42-yard line and wasted little time scoring on a 28-yard touchdown throw from Emperley to Brian Mueller.
The Bears’ next drive went 48-yards, keyed by Danny Tauchen’s 38-yard run, but stalled at the Cedar Grove-Belgium 27-yard line when the Bears failed to convert fourth-and-17.
Cedar Grove-Belgium used almost all of the last 3 minutes of the first half to score an 8-yard touchdown on a throw from Emperley to Chier.
On the ensuing kickoff, another Bonduel fumble was recovered by Cedar Grove-Belgium.
With just 0.9 seconds on the clock, Emperley launched a ball that somehow made it through two Bonduel defenders to land in the arms of Mueller, who was on the ground in the end zone. The score put the Rockets up 32-7.
“They have a great quarterback, they have great athletes on the field,” Westrich said. “They made plays. Athletes make plays. We didn’t have an answer for that.”
Chier ran in two more scores in the second half, finishing with 13 carries for 102 yards and three rushing touchdowns and one receiving touchdown. Emperley was 10 of 17 for 188 yards and four touchdowns.
Bonduel quarterback Colton Dobratz was three for 100 for 46 yards and an interception. Tauchen had seven carries for 45 yards. Hunter Berry added eight carries for 39 yards.
“I’m really proud of this team,” Westrich said. “We got better at the right time, I thought. Obviously, this wasn’t our best football tonight. The last three or four weeks we kept getting better every week. That’s what you want to do.”
The coach said the team suffered some tough losses in the season, but kept fighting through it.
“I really like the resiliency of this team,” Westrich said. “It’s been a fun year. Great group of kids. Great group of seniors. I’m going to miss the seniors a lot, great leadership. It was a fun year.”
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