Bay Port plows past Preble
GREEN BAY – The Bay Port football team is capable of delivering some heavy blows.
The Pirates showed Thursday night how they’ll react after they’ve been hit square in the jaw by some.
Bay Port plowed past Green Bay Preble for a 55-21 victory to extend its Fox River Classic Conference winning streak to 29 straight games.
The final score isn’t indicative of how close the game was through three quarters before the Pirates put the pedal down to put the contest out of reach with a devastating ground game, which accounted for 401 of the team’s 507 yards of offense.
“That’s just great, game-type conditioning that you can’t simulate that running gassers,” Bay Port coach Gary Westerman said. “We started to push the pace there a little bit on the last couple of drives and that was on purpose to push our offense a little bit. Kids when they get fatigued they start to make mistakes, and you want to guard against that.”
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With senior running back Isaiah Gash still out with a leg injury, junior Matt Grzybowski carried the load for Bay Port, totaling 258 rushing yards on 36 carries and scored four touchdowns.
The Pirates looked to be on pace to cruise in the second half when it took a 34-7 lead after senior Andrew Thomas found senior Sam Plumb for a 46-yard scoring strike.
However, the Hornets had closed the gap to 13 points following an 84-yard interception return for a touchdown by senior Ian Henjum and a 32-yard touchdown pass by senior Ryan Buergi to senior Nathan Vanseth.
“The effort was unbelievable,” Preble coach Dustin Gresen said.
“We shot ourselves in the foot on mistakes. We stopped them multiple times on defense, but when we had assignment mistakes is when they would get gains. That’s what we have to eliminate.”
Not even two full weeks through the season, Bay Port is one of only three remaining undefeated teams in the Fox River Classic Conference.
Pulaski recorded a 35-0 shutout over Manitowoc Thursday to also improve to 2-0, while Ashwaubenon will try to improve to 2-0 Friday night when it faces Sheboygan North.
The Pirates will be looking to learn from their mistakes Thursday to continue their march to a fourth straight FRCC title.
“I think it’s good for us to face adversity early on in the season because it will just help us improve from here on out,” said Bay Port senior defensive end Max Meeuwsen, who made a sack in the game.
“We made some mistakes. Everything is fixable, just little mistakes, and next week is a new week. It’s time to focus on our next game.”