Jaguars get rolling in road win
The Ashwaubenon football team needed this one.
The Jaguars totaled 492 yards of offense to pick up a 48-28 victory at De Pere on Thursday in a Fox River Classic Conference game.
It’s tough to think of a game as being a “must-win” for a team when school hasn’t even started yet and the calendar was still a few hours away from turning to September, but that’s the situation Ashwaubenon (1-2) was looking at after coming up just short in its first two games of the season.
“It was huge,” Ashwaubenon coach Mark Jonas said. “We needed to get this one. I think we all feel like we let two get away. The fact is they got away, so we have to do something about it and start winning.”
The Jaguars came out firing on all cylinders to take a 21-0 lead thanks to three touchdown passes by senior Anthony Guarascio.
Guarascio completed 21-of-30 passes in the game for 357 yards and four touchdowns in addition to rushing for a score in the final minute of the first half to put Ashwaubenon up 28-6.
Senior Graham Manders led the Jaguars on defense with 7½ tackles, including combining on a first-half sack with senior Remy Rickert. Senior Diego Zastrow also came up with an interception in the first half.
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“They didn’t shy away from the idea that it was a really important football game for us,” Jonas said.
Ashwaubenon set the tone for what it wanted to accomplish on the night by going for it on fourth-and-5 from the De Pere 21-yard line on their first drive of the game. It resulted with Guarascio finding Will Adair for the first of two TD connections between the pair of seniors.
The score came two plays after Ashwaubenon had a TD pass to senior Griffin Baierl called back due to having an ineligible player downfield.
“Our line stepped up a lot from last week,” Guarascio said in referencing a Week 2 overtime loss at Green Bay Notre Dame. “Our receivers were running real crisp routes the whole game. I think we had a lot of time to throw and our receivers did really well today.”
Although it never could quite close the gap, De Pere (1-2) did manage to contain the Jaguars during a scoreless third quarter, which saw sophomore Sam Hafner record a couple of sacks.
Senior Cheyenne Elm also picked up two sacks for the game that closed with the teams exchanging touchdowns in the fourth quarter.
Nate Baranek finished with a game-high 191 rushing yards for De Pere, while fellow senior Gavin Knott caught five passes for 61 yards and accounted for the Redbirds’ first-half TD.
Sophomore Christian Bocik completed 7-of-9 passes for 100 yards and threw for a pair of scores in addition to rushing for another TD in the loss.
“Our objective is to grow up a little bit every play, every series, every quarter, every game,” said De Pere coach Chad Michalkiewicz, whose team committed both of its turnovers in the second quarter.
“When you’re this young, you have to find positives and build on those positives. We have to push reset and go back to the hard work ethic that’s going to get us to where we need to go.”
The Jaguars are aiming to go to the WIAA playoffs for a 20th straight year this season.
Thursday’s win was crucial to those hopes as was the way Ashwaubenon closed out the game in putting together some solid drives with its ground game. Senior Alex Stanko rushed for 152 yards overall and scored a pair of TDs in the fourth quarter.
“If they really want to work hard together they can be really good up front,” Jonas said.
“When Alex runs the ball like that, he punishes a defense. That makes a big difference because it wears you down. He did a great job and those guys up front just kept battling and just kept battling. They did what they needed to do, finally.”
Ashwaubenon 7 21 0 20 – 48
De Pere 0 6 0 22 – 28
First quarter
ASH – Will Adair 21 pass from Anthony Guarascio (Parker Murphy kick)
Second quarter
ASH – Adair 24 pass from Guarascio (Murphy kick)
ASH – Murphy 35 pass from Guarascio (Murphy kick)
DP – Gavin Knott 10 pass from Christian Bocik (Kick failed)
ASH – Guarascio 1 run (Murphy kick)
Fourth quarter
ASH – Alex Stanko 15 run (Murphy kick)
DP – Max Minor 34 pass from Bocik (Ethan Hohol pass from Bocik)
ASH – Stanko 15 run (Kick failed)
DP – Nate Baranek 4 run (Run failed)
ASH – Evan Wood 14 pass from Guarascio (Murphy kick)
DP – Bocik 13 run (Heisdorf pass from Bocik)
Individual statistics
Rushing – ASH: Alex Stanko 22-152, Troy Lo 3-14, Jonathon Maldonado 2-7, Camden Wheeler 1-4, Anthony Guarascio 5- – 42; DP: Nate Baranek 24-191, Christian Bocik 8-19, Stephen Tobisch 4-13, Max Minor 2-11.
Passing – ASH: Guarascio 21-30-1-357; DP: Bocik 7-9-1-100.
Receiving – ASH: Griffin Baierl 4-99, Will Adair 5-97, Evan Wood 4-66, Parker Murphy 2-40, Parker Kreutzberg 2-11, Ben Delaurelle 1-15, Justin Beauleau 1-14, Collin Secor 1-9, Alex Stanko 1-6; DP: Gavin Knott 5-61, Max Minor 4-39.