Friday Night Lights Recap: Onalaska vs Aquinas

This week I traveled to west central Wisconsin to catch the showdown between Onalaska High School and Aquinas High School. The game did end up with the win going to the team I had predicted would win, but the game wasn’t quite as competitive as I had hoped going into it. I knew there was going to be legitimate college talent and that talent didn’t disappoint. It was big play after big play through the air and off tackle along with some tough running between the tackles, but enough with these broad descriptions. Let’s dive into what specifically happened throughout the game. Thanks for reading! Aquinas started off the game on offense and they came out with a plan that was actually giving them their most success. They attacked the outside with their run game. Calvin Hargrove and Joe Penchi were the main ball carriers for Aquinas. While undersized, these two displayed some nice quickness to get outside when they got some space. After one first down though, Aquinas was stalled on offense and had to punt to Onalaska. Early in the drive, Onalaska dropped back to pass when DB Aidan Lee came flying through the line for Aquinas and sacked Onalaska QB Ayden Larson. After the sack Onalaska went with more quick passes to move the ball and take away the risk of pressure on the QB. Larson hit WR Hudson Weber on a couple of quick slants to start to move down the field. Then we got introduced to Onalaska’s big big big RB Albert Romero. Romero is listed at 6’3" 215 lbs and he is all of that. He is raw at the position, but you can’t deny what he has to offer. Romero is a north south runner and if you try to stop that he is just going to lower his shoulder and go right through you. He did it several times throughout tonight’s game. After a few carries, Onalaska went to the deep ball for their first big play of the night. Larson dropped back and found the speedster, WR [player_tooltip player_id="30972" first="Landon" last="Peterson"], flying down the sideline on a go route. Landon whooped the DB at the line and burnt him with his straightline speed for the easy TD and 6-0 lead. They teams went for 2 after almost every TD, but they weren’t converting on many. On Aquinas’ next drive they were shut down from the first snap, and after a quick three and out they were forced to punt back to Onalaska. Aquinas seemed to never be able to find a rhythm along with not consistently trying to stretch the field with the pass. On the punt, Onalaska almost broke through and made the block. While they didn’t quite get there in time they did force a bad punt and gave themselves excellent field position inside the Aquinas 40 yard line. On offense, Onalaska went back to what worked on drive one. Romero hammered his way up the middle for tough yards. It was a lot of 3 yards and a cloud of dust style running, but it was moving the ball. Romero came through big on a short 4th down where he lowered his shoulder and bulldozed his way to the first down. A few plays after the first down Larson dropped back and again looked Landon’s way. Landon was able to catch the 22 yard TD to put them up 12-0 after another failed conversion attempt. On the next series Onalaska really put their foot on the necks of Aquinas. Right away Onalaska came out and forced a fumble and recovered it. It seemed almost impossible for Aquinas to grab any sort of momentum at this point. Every bounce was going Onalaska’s way. OHS came out and didn’t change a thing. They pounded the rock up the middle early and often. Romero was the key power back, but he was complemented by Michael Savarin who did a good job attacking the edge on jet sweeps. Savarin lined up in the slot, but the jet sweep handoffs were his main ways of getting touches all night. This drive didn’t see much of an air attack as Romero kept hammering up the middle. Those 3 yards starting breaking through for bigger and bigger chunks as he wore down the interior of the defense. Romero was able to finish this drive off himself on a impressive 14 yard TD run. He took the handoff right up the middle. He lowered his shoulder just past the line of scrimmage and ran right through an Aquinas LB’s tackle attempt. From there he was able to run into the endzone basically untouched. The power Romero has is impressive and he has so much potential in him still as a senior that isn’t tapped into yet. After that drive the first quarter came to an end with Onalaska leading 20-0 thanks to that Romero TD and Onalaska’s first 2 point conversion when Larson found Peterson on what turned into a scramble drill. Aquinas started the second quarter on offense, but again they had trouble getting anything started. On second down, Greyson Thogmartin broke around the edge and caused Aquinas QB Jackson Flottmeyer to scramble. He didn’t get far though and Greyson drug him down for the sack. Two plays later saw Aquinas punting back to Onalaska. It looked like things were going to be a complete washout at this point. Onalaska took over on offense. On one of their early plays of the drive they attempted to set up a screen, but it was tipped and bobbled all over the place. It ended falling right into OT [player_tooltip player_id="30926" first="Colton" last="Hougom"]’s hands making his dreams and every offensive lineman’s dreams come true. An in game reception that feels awesome, but in the end netted a solid 3 yards. Dreams do come true people! Colton actually had a great game. He is long and lean at 6’3" 235 with the frame to hold a lot more size and strength. He is so athletic too and has sufficient body control. There is a lot to work with with Colton. Unfortunately, Onalaska wasn’t able to capitalize on their lineman’s nice hands. A few plays later Larson went deep over the middle when Aquinas’ Junior DB Chris Wilson jumped in front of the ball and made the interception and returned it to Onalaska’s 26 yard line giving Aquinas great field position early in the second. It didn’t take long for Aquinas to capitalize on their first momentum swing of the game either. Two plays into the drive RB Calvin Hargrove broke free to the outside on a carry and let his speed take care of the rest. He went the whole 26 yards essentially untouched. Calvin showed off some nice vision along with that speed to find the crease to get him to the outside. Aquinas did go for two and it was unsuccessful leaving us with a 20- 6 Onalaska lead. Onalaska wasn’t going to let that momentum stay on Aquinas’ side for long. On their next drive you can probably guess what happened. They started off with hammering Romero up the middle to continue wearing out the defense. Then they took to the air to finish off the drive. This time it was Hudson Weber who hauled in the deep shot right over his shoulder. QB Larson throws such a tight spiral and a beautiful ball overall, and besides that interception he was accurate all night long. Dropping the ball in a bucket. I’m also a big fan of Weber. He has impressive size and length at 6’2" and he has plenty of speed to pair with that size. He also showed off that he could both make defenders miss or run with power when he got the ball in his hands. Hudson really broke out for me this game. After the successful 2 point conversion pushed the score to 28-6 Aquinas took back over. I expected to see more passing to come on this drive so they can maybe get a quick score as they were getting into the second half of quarter two. They instead kept it on the ground and Onalaska’s front seven continued their domination of the line of scrimmage. It got to the point where I thought Aquinas was picking up some nice plays at it was only 3 yard gains. They were so stiffled by the Onalaska front seven all night. It’s why I kept waiting for them to attack deep through the air. After the run didn’t work they were again forced to punt with about 4 minutes left in the half. Onalaska came out running the ball again to get the clock moving. They were able to both milk the clock almost completely out while also moving into scoring position. WR Weber picked up right where he left off on the last series too. He somehow was left wide open along the sideline, so Larson hit him with a quick pass and Weber raced his way down inside the redzone. With 14 seconds, left and the ball near the goal line, Onalaska pulled out a trick play. The RB took the handoff and gave it to a receiver on the reverse. Instead of running it in, though, he threw the ball into the endzone where [player_tooltip player_id="30972" first="Landon" last="Peterson"] was able to collect his third score of the half and a 34- 6 halftime lead. One of the bright spots for Aquinas was Aidan Lee. He showed up on defense when he got the early sack, but he also showed up on kick return. He almost broke several for scores, and many picked up big chunks of yards. Right before the half Aidan was able to return it to about the 50 yard line thanks to his speed, vision, and some nice contact balance for his size. He’s a guy to know. Onalaska received the second half kickoff and didn’t miss a beat. Between Romero’s running and Landon picking up yards through the air the offense was able to move right down the field to start quarter three. Eventually the offense worked their way inside the 10 yard line and they let the big back eat. Romero eventually was able to bust his way through the line and into the endzone for another score and a 40- 6 lead. Between his size and the offensive line’s dominant ownership of the line of scrimmage they were able to move the ball consistently all night. The third quarter seemed to fly by between Onalaska’s run game and on Aquinas’ first drive they started finding success. They were finally able to get to the outside on some runs and pick up a few chunk plays. Unfortunately, that momentum was short lived as Aquinas eventually fumbled a handoff and Onalaska’s DE Gavin Southworth was able to jump on it to create the turnover. When Onalaska took over they did have some trouble getting started. On an early third down Aquinas’ young DE Shane Willenbring was able to break through for a sack leading to 4th and 11. Instead of punting Onalaska elected to go for it. Larson took the snap, dropped back, and found Weber along the sideline for another reception. After the catch, Weber was able to shake off one tackle attempt and make another defender miss and then picked up more than enough yards to convert the 4th down. They went right back to Hudson Weber a few plays later for the score. With 2:32 remaining in the third Larson made the quick pass to Hudson and let him work. Hudson broke past two Aquinas defenders and then raced into the endzone for the 46-6 lead. Because of a rule, once this score happened and we had the 40 point differential in the score the clock became a running clock. So the clock quickly ran out to end the third quarter as Aquinas took over on offense. Aquinas couldn’t get anything going on offense though and they had to punt it around the start of the 4th quarter. Onalaska started to rotate in their depth players to get them playing time. The Aquinas defense shut them down easily and forced a short punt that put the Aquinas offense on the field with great field position inside the Onalaska 40 yard line. On their final drive they did start letting Flottmeyer throw it around and I wish they did it much earlier. He has a great frame for a sophomore at 6’5" 210 and the ball comes out of his hand with good zip. With the running clock, Aquinas didn’t have enough time to try and piece together a drive to score at the end of the game. The running clock made the game extremely short in the second half and we ended with a final score of Onalaska: 46 Aquinas: 6. Thank you for reading, and make sure to check out the kids that I mentioned above. There is a lot of college talent here!