Every Wednesday during the regular season we will highlight the 8-Player Football game with a spotlight article on boundwisconsin.com. We'll look back at the action and big stories from the previous week, look ahead at the coming week's big match-ups, and select a Star of the Week.
8-Player coaches, please enter player stats on Bound Wisconsin so that we can continue having the necessary information to produce this weekly spotlight of your game, and feel free to send any news or information to us as well.
Looking Back
Week 7 did not feature any ranked matchups in 8-player football, resulting in a significant number of blowouts. Still, there were a few very competitive contests that came down to the wire.
Sevastopol rallied from a 21-6 deficit to begin the fourth quarter, defeating Green Bay NEW Lutheran/Oneida/Providence 22-21. Logan Schuh had a big game, more on that later.
Siren and Prairie Farm were locked in a 16-16 tie entering the fourth quarter on Friday before the Dragons got the game-winner to score a 22-16 victory. Parker Fingerson threw for 282 yards and two scores, with Josh Taylor hauling in 12 passes for 181 yards and two touchdowns. Joe D’Jock ran for 137 yards and a touchdown on 20 carries.
Down in Williams Bay, the Bulldogs fell to Saint John’s Northwestern 22-16 on Friday night. Ethan Welsh stayed the course despite throwing three interceptions, passing for two touchdowns and leading the team with 67 rushing yards.
The only ranked team to go down was Athens, as the tenth-ranked Fighting Bluejays fell to Phillips 52-40. J.J. Heikkinen and Wade Vetter combined for 358 rushing yards and six scores on the ground, while Heikkinen also threw a touchdown and had an 80-yard kickoff return touchdown.
Looking Ahead
This is the final week of the 8-player regular season, with playoff qualifiers and brackets announced on Saturday and the first round of the expanded 32-team postseason beginning next week.
Once again, there are no ranked matchups this week.
There’s a winner-take-all battle for the Northwoods-West 8 Conference, where Northwood/Solon Springs and Shell Lake enter undefeated in league play.
The other 8-player conference races seem to be pretty settled heading into the final week.
In a non-conference game to close out the season, Clayton, who is 6-1, will meet up with defending state champion Owen-Withee. Both are comfortably in the playoffs, but this serves as a good tune-up heading into the postseason.
Star of the Week: Logan Schuh, Sevastopol
Sevastopol rallied with 16 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to take down Green Bay NEW Lutheran/Oneida/Providence 22-21 on Friday, a big boost to the playoff chances and standings for the Pioneers. Senior Logan Schuh had a huge game in the comeback win, throwing for 224 yards and a touchdown, adding 168 rushing yards and a score as well.
Travis Wilson serves as the Bound Wisconsin Manager. Wilson was selected as part of the Sports 40 Under 40 list by Coach & AD Magazine and the National High School Athletic Coaches Association for 2019. The Wisconsin Football Coaches Association (WFCA) named Travis the 2015 recipient of the Dave McClain Distinguished Service Award. He currently serves on the WFCA Executive Board and is a member of the Executive Board of the Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association. A graduate of Richland Center High School and Mount Mercy College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Travis was a three-sport athlete in high school (football, baseball, basketball), inducted to the Richland Center High School Hall of Fame in 2023, and currently resides in Reedsburg. You can follow him on Twitter at @travisBound or reach him at [email protected].