Lake Geneva Badger 24, Burlington 20
Late Badger defensive stand extends team’s dominance over Demons to 8 games
By Andrew Horschak
Sports Correspondent
Lake Geneva Badger continues to be the No. 1 nemesis for the Burlington football team.
Winless against the Badgers since returning to the Southern Lakes Conference in 2009, the Demons were denied once again in a demoralizing 24-20 defeat in the league opener on Friday, Sept. 2 at Don Dalton Stadium.
Entering the season with SLC title aspirations, Burlington will need to regroup in a hurry when it travels to Waterford for its second conference matchup. The Wolverines have won at least a share of the last five conference crowns.
“We don’t have time to dwell on it,” Burlington coach Steve Tenhagen said about the loss. “We have another one right around the corner.”
Given what transpired against Badger, it would be hard not to fault the Demons for dwelling a little bit.
“Anytime that you lose a game like that – and we’ve done it a couple years to Badger now where we’re right there – there are usually three to five plays a game that you look back on, when you have a pretty good team, that when you make those plays, you end up winning those games against good opponents. When you don’t, sometimes you end up on the wrong side of it.”
Trailing by four points late in the fourth quarter, the Demons (1-2 overall) had a first-and-goal from the Badger 3-yard line, but couldn’t punch the ball into the end zone.
On fourth down from the 1, Nick Klug’s jump pass over the line intended for tight end Dale Damon was broken up by Austin Flower with 3 minutes, 30 seconds on the clock.
Three minutes earlier, Burlington’s Jack Miller had a 15-yard touchdown run wiped out by a holding penalty. The Demons ended up getting no points on the drive.
With the score tied 14-14 at halftime, Badger (3-0 overall) took the lead for good on a 41-yard field goal by Tias Larson with 7:42 left in the third quarter. The Badgers padded their lead to 24-14 almost five minutes later when Ryan Sproul caught a pass by Mason DuMez over the middle, slipped away from a tackle attempt by Julian Luciano and raced 63 yards for a touchdown – his second of the game.
Trick play sparks comeback
The Demons got back into the contest with some trickery. Lined up in punt formation, Klug hooked up
with a wide-open Grant Tully down the left sideline for a 73-yard TD with 2:16 to play in the third.
“We saw something on film that we thought we could exploit,” Tenhagen said. “It’s nice when it works.”
After connecting on his first two PATs of the game, Lance Otter was unable to convert, keeping the score 24-20.
Tully also caught a 9-yard TD pass from Klug with 1:32 left in the first half to help tie it at 14 all.
In his first action on offense this season, Tully provided an instant spark, catching six passes for 129 yards. He played with a cast due to a baseball injury in the first two games and had it removed prior to facing Badger.
Klug finished 14-of-25 for 204 yards. Miller had 13 carries for 63 yards and scored the game’s first TD on a 4-yard run midway through the first quarter. Damon caught four passes for 57 yards.
Luis Benitez was in on 10 tackles (four solo) as was Otter (three solo) to pace the Burlington defense.
Patrick Waltrous (21 carries, 111 yards, TD) and DuMez (16 carries, 97 yards) led Badger’s run-oriented option offense.
The Demons will face another ornery team when they take on Waterford at 7 p.m. Thursday. The Wolverines (2-1 overall) are coming off a 10-7 loss to Wilmot.
“We knew our schedule was loaded on the front end,” Tenhagen said. “We can’t control how the conference schedules the opponents.
“The league is solid right now. They’re all big. They really are. At the end of the day, if you want to be in the conference championship conversation you know you have to win a majority of your games. This one is no different than the other ones when it comes to that aspect. This one is big, without a doubt, but we’re not making it any bigger than it really is.”
The rivalry game will be on television in prime time as part of my24 Milwaukee’s Thursday Night Lights.
It will be on Channel 24 on Time Warner Cable.
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