Eagles fall to Pioneers in offensive shootout to close out season

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Ben O'Connell, Staff Reporter

 

On Sat. afternoon at Veterans Memorial Stadium, the UW-La Crosse football team faced off against the UW-Platteville Pioneers. Coming into the game, the Eagles had a 5-4 record, all four losses coming consecutively in the past 4 weeks, the Pioneers boasting a 7-2 record on the year.

Offense dominated the game as both teams racked up a combined 108 points, with 63 of them coming from Platteville. The final score ended up 63-45 in favor of the Pioneers. The key to Platteville’s success was their ability to run behind a large offensive line, a unit that produced a 316-yard rusher in Wyatt Thompson over the course of the game. On the flip side, La Crosse’s most potent attack came in the air, with Tarek Yaeggi racking up 535 passing yards on the day.

La Crosse got things rolling on their first possession, after recovering a Platteville fumble in their opponent’s territory. The Eagles scored their first touchdown of the day shortly afterwards off of a pass to Nick Holcomb that he took all across the field, dodging and evading defenders until he made his way into the endzone. For their next few possessions, La Crosse’s offense struggled to convert, and Platteville took a commanding 28-7 lead over the Eagles.

The Eagles wouldn’t give up though, fighting back before halftime with a 1-yard touchdown run by Tyler Jenkins and later a field goal by Joshua Fisher to make the Pioneers’ lead just 28-17, which was extremely important given that the Eagles would have the ball to start the second half.

With the first possession of the second half, La Crosse quarterback Tarek Yaeggi completed a pass to Nick Holcomb, who took it 66 yards down the sideline for an Eagle touchdown. This made it a four-point game, just 28-24, but that was as close as the Eagles would get for the rest of the day.

Two more touchdowns by Platteville, Thompson rushing and Arnold receiving, extended the Pioneer lead to 42-24 by the end of the third quarter. It was there that the Pioneers pulled away farther than the Eagles could make up for.

The fourth quarter continued the flurry of scoring that characterized the entire 108-point game. Thompson scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter alone for Platteville, on runs of 58, 11, and 8 yards. On the La Crosse side, Yaeggi and Oxton connected twice for touchdowns in the fourth and Jenkins ran it in for another.

When the clock hit zero and La Crosse losing 63-45, the atmosphere wasn’t one of despair but one of hope.

“This past season shows we can compete with the best teams in the WIAC, and have a lot of potential for the next few years” said sophomores Zach Novotny and Jeremiah Wait on the football season as a whole.

This was the Eagles final game of the 2016 season. Their overall record on the year was 5-5 and their conference record ended up being 2-5, an improvement from their disappointing 3-7 2015 season.