Oconto ready for big test
Believe.
It’s the key ingredient Brian Sohrweide has been adding to the Oconto football team since he took over as the program’s head coach two years ago.
“I want our kids to believe they are every bit as good as anyone in the conference,” Sohrweide said.
Photo courtesy of Caroline Young/LY Photography
The Blue Devils will have a chance to prove they are just that Friday when they play at Southern Door in a conference-opening game for the MONLPC-Large.
Oconto is aiming to contend for its first conference title since 1986 with seven starters returning on offense and defense.
It will get its toughest test right off the bat in MONLPC-Large play with the Eagles, who have won back-to-back Packerland Conference titles and 13 straight conference games overall dating back to 2014, including a 35-0 thumping of Oconto last year.
“I went through that tape when they beat us last year, and they beat us pretty handily by score,” Sohrweide said. “But I didn’t think from a physical standpoint that we were that far off. I thought we made a lot of mistakes, stupid mistakes, like maybe blocking the wrong guy or not getting your head on the right side and all of a sudden the guy slips off a tackle.”
More times than not, that “guy” was Derik LeCaptain for Southern Door. The 6-foot-2 junior has rushed for 389 yards and scored six touchdowns overall through two games this season.
The Eagles (1-1) enter Friday already battled-tested, having pulled out a 46-40 victory against Winneconne and falling short in a 17-14 loss at Wausau East last week in nonconference play.
Meanwhile, Oconto (2-0) has been impressive in outscoring Rosholt and Manitowoc Roncalli by a combined score of 80-7. The Blue Devils took four-touchdown leads in both games by the half and had at least five different players reach the end zone for scores in the game.
The depth and versatility of Oconto’s lineup has been crucial to the program’s resurgence under Sohrweide, who was previously a longtime assistant coach with the football team and led the baseball team to WIAA Division 3 state championship game appearances in 2013 and 2014.
The Blue Devils qualified for the WIAA football playoffs for the first time since 2013 last season after switching to a “Pistol” formation to run its option offense from.
“I love it,” Sohrweide said. “It’s cut down on time. Our traditional option and the footwork and the timing of it was very time-consuming to try to get that down. That’s one of the reasons I went to the ‘Pistol’ was there is less footwork. It’s a lot easier to teach. I can get multiple people touching the ball, too, running motion and that type of thing.”
Oconto saw its roster grow from 28 to 40 players for this year. It’s tough to say how much of that was due to getting more individuals the football, but the offensive change certainly didn’t hurt.
Senior Parker James has rushed for 175 yards and two touchdowns to lead the Blue Devils through two games this season.
Oconto has the luxury of returning senior Jake Krueger at quarterback.
Seniors Lucas Ruechel, Carson Moe, Bryce O’Connor and Evan Allen all return after earning first-team all-Packerland Conference honors last year on defense.
Senior Isaac Woller and junior Zach Sherman are also two-way starters that are back.
Sohrweide said his team isn’t very big across the board, but did a solid job of controlling the line of scrimmage against a bigger Roncalli team last week.
He knows it will have to do the same in order to hang with Southern Door this time around.
“They’re the team to beat,” Sohrweide said. “There is no question about it. They’re still very strong. They’re still very, very good. Obviously, if you want to be the best you have to beat the best.”