Pulaski overpowers Southwest in wild opener

GREEN BAY – A power outage at Dahlin Family Stadium delayed the start of Thursday’s season-opening game between Pulaski and Green Bay Southwest.

The ending of the contest was pretty electrifying, though.

The visiting Red Raiders rallied to take the lead in the fourth quarter and held on for a 21-17 victory in the Fox River Classic Conference game.

With its defense facing a first-and-goal from its 5-yard line with a little over a minute remaining, Pulaski junior linebacker Jadin Lemke’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree when he saw the football rolling on the turf following a low Southwest snap.

Lemke made the recovery, and the Red Raiders were able to escape with the win and end a four-game losing streak to the Trojans, who won an overtime contest in last year’s opener and a playoff game over Pulaski last year.

“It’s the first game of the year so things are going to be sloppy,” Pulaski coach Jerad Marsh said. “So, it’s going to come down to whoever makes fewer mistakes. To have the belief to the very end there and to be able to get that one that tends to be something that happens to us instead of something that happens for us. It was nice for the boys to be able to come up with it. It was pretty cool.”

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Conditions were far from cool. Despite the later start, the air was thick and heavy due to the humidity.

That didn’t help Southwest, which had about a dozen players rotating in both ways.

The Trojans had a few of them go down with cramps in the fourth quarter when Pulaski took control with its ground-and-pound offense.

Senior Dylan Hendricks scored the deciding points on a 50-yard touchdown gallop down the middle of the Southwest defense with 10 minutes remaining in the game.

It was the North Dakota State recruit’s third touchdown of the game, which was tied 7-7 at the half after Hendricks scored his first touchdown with 1.6 seconds remaining before the break.

The difference in the second half was the play of the Red Raiders’ offensive line, consisting of senior Dustin Van Lannen, senior Liam Fahey, senior Chasten Fatla, junior Caleb Szymik, junior Bennett Sheedy and senior tight end Nathan Przybylski.

“We put a lot of responsibility on our O-linemen,” Marsh said. “That (Isaac) Klarkowski boy (for Southwest) does an excellent job. He plugged power up. He’s just a real good football player. We had to play around between sweep and power and pretty soon the guys felt good on how we were doing on sweep. You could see (Southwest) was starting to substitute more and it’s a humid day, and we’re lucky enough that we only have one or two guys go both ways. I think that helped us a little tonight.

After giving up three turnovers earlier in the contest, including a pair of interceptions made by Southwest senior Josh Yasha, the Red Raiders were able to collect one of their own on the ensuing series following Hendricks’ third touchdown run when senior Logan Lukasik high-pointed a deep pass intended for Yasha.

Pulaski’s Single Wing offense took over with 8 minutes, 34 seconds remaining at that point.

It chewed up over 6 minutes of clock in driving inside the Southwest 20-yard line, but ultimately came away with no points after missing a field goal and having two-would-be touchdown runs by Hendricks called back due to holding penalties.

Southwest took over from its 20-yard line and five players later moved to the Pulaski 5 after senior Nick Howard found senior Will Pytleski for a big gain down the right sideline and having additional yardage tacked on for a late hit out of bounds.

However, the momentum – and the game – swung in the other direction on the following play.

“I love our guys,” Southwest co-head coach Pat Wallace said. “Like I told them, you proved you can play. They have to learn to win. That’s the second phase of this thing with our inexperience. They made some plays. We just didn’t make enough of them.”

“We took a step forward from the beginning of the year to now. Now, we have to take another big step and get a win because 1-1 is a lot better than 0-2 when you want to get to the playoffs. I’m excited. I think our guys have heart and character and we started to find some identities today.”

THURSDAY’S FRCC SCOREBOARD

Pulaski 21, G.B. Southwest 17

G.B. Preble 10, Ashwaubenon 7

De Pere 15, Manitowoc 13

Bay Port 62, Sheboygan North 6