Fond du Lac vs Kimberly: Game Recap

As I was looking through the schedule for the final week of the season one game stood out above the rest. #1 Fond du Lac vs #2 Kimberly. The two undefeated powerhouses met on May 7th at Appleton East High School for the showdown. The huge matchup not only turned out to be one of the most entertaining matchups I have ever scouted, coached, or played in, it also gave us a glimpse of pre-covid high school football normalcy. There were full stands with rowdy student sections, tons of news stations and photographers, and perfect, cool weather. It felt like we are well on our way to returning to normal and I hope it continues that way as we hope to have a fall season with the involvement of every school in the state. Before we get into the offseason and work towards that goal, let’s dive into how this amazing game with elite talent on both sides played out! The game started hot out of the gates. Fond du Lac received the opening kickoff, and came out with their vaunted running attack that revolved around RB/LB [player_tooltip player_id="31202" first="Braelon" last="Allen"] and QB/Do it all ATH [player_tooltip player_id="30790" first="Kyle" last="Walljasper"]. On his second carry of the game, Walljasper pulled the read option, found a seam and raced 55 yards untouched for the first score of the game and the 7-0 lead. Kimberly’s offense wasn’t going to stay behind on the scoreboard for long. QB [player_tooltip player_id="118359" first="Caden" last="Pendleton"] found WR [player_tooltip player_id="31249" first="Owen" last="Pawlikowski"] for 56 yards on the first completion of the game down to the Fondy 3. From their RB [player_tooltip player_id="30736" first="Caleb" last="Frazer"] punched it in leading to the 7-7 tie. These opening drives gave us a great taste of how the rest of this half was going to play out. Fondy attacking on the ground, and Kimberly showing a balanced air and ground attack. Speaking of that Fondy ground attack, it took [player_tooltip player_id="31202" first="Braelon" last="Allen"] exactly one play to break the tie again as he took the handoff on the first play of the drive, found a seam of daylight, and raced 66 yards for the 14-7 lead. Kimberly’s offense again came out and responded. Pendleton’s arm was the key to this drive. They aired it out a lot to Pawlikowski, and WR Owen Wnek. Pawlikowski stepped up huge as he hauled in a clutch 13 yard catch on 4th & 9. Two plays later Pendleton took the snap and quickly lofted a deep pass to Wnek. Wnek was able to perfectly run right underneath the ball and haul it in for the score to tie us up at 14-14 as the first quarter came to an end. The second quarter started with just as much fireworks as there was in the first quarter. [player_tooltip player_id="31202" first="Braelon" last="Allen"] took the opening play handoff, burst through the gap and picked up 57 yards before DB [player_tooltip player_id="30754" first="Griffin" last="Wiegel"] was able to push him out of bounds at the Kimberly 17. A couple plays later [player_tooltip player_id="30790" first="Kyle" last="Walljasper"] lowered his shoulder and plowed his way into the endzone with the aid of Braelon’s leading blocking efforts. It was very clear that points were going to be in high demand tonight and the offense with the fewest mistakes was going to win this game. Kimberly’s offense understood this as they came out and used a very balanced attack to move down into Fondy territory and the redzone. Pendleton was again able to end the drive with a score, but this time it was with his legs instead of his arm. He took off from 5 yards out and ran over a DB at the goal line to get the score and 21-21 tie. When Fondy came back out on offense it looked like they were about to have to piece together their first long drive, but after a few plays they found their big plays again as QB Walljasper followed his blocks, played through some contact, and then ran 44 yards for the 28-21 lead with 4:56 remaining in the half. Kimberly came out looking to continue their success of going score for score with Fondy. RB Frazer started the drive well with 25 yard gain and then a 13 yard gain back to back. Then the first mistake happened. Kimberly eventually faced a 4th down. They were able to complete the pass, but the WR slipped and went down mere inches from the sticks costing them the possession. Crazy to see how that one mistake occurred and we were at a one possession game. Every play mattered in this matchup. Fond du Lac’s offense only need two plays to capitalize on that turnover. Walljasper picked up 57 yards and then Braelon finished the drive with a 33 yard rushing TD. Kimberly had to come out and answer late in the half as they faced a two score deficit. Answer they did. Kimberly used one minute of the 1:23 remaining in the half to go down and score. Pendleton, Wnek, and Frazer came through with key big plays to move the offense quickly down the field. Frazer finished the drive with a 7 yard score where he was able to outrun the defense to the corner and sneak inside the pylon. This gave us a halftime score of Fondy: 35 Kimberly: 28. Just looking at this first half alone, it was the best half of high school football I had ever seen on the offensive side of the ball. Perfect execution. Big plays. Everyone doing their job. Also the one difference in the game was the one turnover on downs. You couldn’t have asked for a better half if you love offensive football. The third quarter was instant fireworks from the start. Fond du Lac kicked off to begin the half, and instead of booting it deep they did an onside kick and were able to recover it in Kimberly territory. After two plays that didn’t go anywhere, [player_tooltip player_id="31202" first="Braelon" last="Allen"] was able to find another seam to daylight and race 48 yards untouched for the 42-28 lead early in the third quarter. On Kimberly’s first drive of the game they experienced their first struggle on offense. They were able to get a quick first down on their first snap, but from their quickly went three plays for no gain and decided to go for it on 4th down because they knew they had to keep pace with Fondy on the scoreboard. Unfortunately for Kimberly, the 4th down pass attempt was broken up forcing the turnover on downs. The Fondy machine that is their rushing attack quickly capitalized as Walljasper took the first snap of the drive, and followed his blocks around the left end. He was able to take the carry 44 yards for the score. Fondy’s run game was so lethal. So many drives were only 1-3 plays because they kept breaking off these huge runs. With 9:10 remaining in the third we sat at Fond du Lac: 49 Kimberly: 28. Kimberly came back out on offense looking to find the endzone for the first time in the second half. They started off well as they moved the ball down the field. However, Fond du Lac’s defense once again dug their heels in and forced a 4th down attempt. This time it was [player_tooltip player_id="31202" first="Braelon" last="Allen"] on defense as he was able to get pressure on the QB to force a bad pass and turnover on downs. Fond du Lac changed it up a bit on their following drive. On third down they took to the air as Walljasper found Logan Graf for a huge gain, and then hit WR [player_tooltip player_id="31109" first="Tyler" last="Collien"] on the jet sweep shovel pass. Collien was able to get around the right side and score from 24 yards out thanks to some elusive running with the ball. This really blew the game wide open as the third quarter ended soon after the score. Fondy went into the 4th quarter with a commanding 57-28 lead. One thing to note is that both of these teams were usually able to put their opponents away by halftime, so I was interested to see who was going to be able to battle throughout the whole game. Fond du Lac proved they were able to easily take control the longer the game went on. Kimberly wasn’t going to go quietly, though. They responded early in the 4th with a 2 yard [player_tooltip player_id="30736" first="Caleb" last="Frazer"] TD run. Frazer and fellow RB Parker Koester were able to pound their way down the field with the ground game before finishing the drive with the score. The Fondy offense was just too potent to stop for Kimberly. After Braelon recovered the onside kick, QB Walljasper was able to take the carry 50 yards for the score on the first play of the drive to get their four possession lead back instantly as they went up 64-35. The Kimberly offense continued to fight as Pendleton drove them inside the Fondy 5 with his arm. From there RB Parker Koester finished the drive with a two yard score. The scoring flood gates were wide open the rest of the 4th quarter after Koester put the score at 64-41. [player_tooltip player_id="31202" first="Braelon" last="Allen"] kept producing his amazing plays on the next Fondy drive. He took the option pitch around the left end, cut back across the field, and scored the 48 yard TD putting Fond du Lac over 70 points on the night. 71-41 to be exact. The final score of the game came after Pendleton led the Kimberly offense down the field one last time. His receiver was able to break wide open in the endzone and they completed the short pass that brought us to our final score of 71-47. The final production numbers for Allen, Walljasper, and the Kimberly offense are off the charts unreal, but to prevent this article from getting too long I will be including my Players of the Game in my Top Performers of the Week article coming out on Wednesday! I wanted to include them there because it is pretty obvious that nobody had the level of production and performance that the stars of this game did. So, make sure to check that out when it comes out on Wednesday afternoon!