Team shows improvement despite litany of injuries
By Mike Ramczyk
And Dana Ehrmann
Sports Correspondent
The Catholic Central football team continues to improves, little by little, despite missing its starting quarterback and top two running backs.
On Friday at home against Whitefish Bay Dominican, the winless Toppers were without quarterback Chad Zirbel, who attempted to come back but got re-injured before attempting a pass, and running backs Frank Koehnke and Paul Nevin, but that didn’t prevent season highs in points and yards.
Dominican jumped out to a 20-0 lead in the first quarter and held on for a 27-16 victory in a Metro Classic Conference contest.
Catholic Central dropped to 0-4 and 0-2 in conference.
But Tristan Welka amassed 115 total yards, including a 50-yard touchdown catch from David Doerflinger and a short touchdown run.
A Manny Jaimes 28-yard field goal cut Dominican’s lead to 20-10 late in the second quarter, but turnovers proved to be too much to overcome.
The Toppers fumbled five times and lost three.
Dominican quarterback Bo Bennett was 10-for-17 for 237 yards, and Drew Dlugopolski caught three balls for 129 yards, including a 77-yard touchdown catch.
Doerflinger threw for 70 yards on 3-for-8 passing.
The Toppers totaled a season-high 151 yards and nine first downs, compared to only five for Dominican.
Catholic Central travels to Greendale Martin Luther (1-3) Friday night.
Hackbarth leads ladies
It was senior Anna Hackbarth’s game.
Against Shoreland Lutheran on Thursday, Sept. 7, “Anna Hackbarth was the player of the game. She led her team as the captain and pushed them to victory,” said Head Coach Bailey Racky.
After Tuesday’s win over Martin Luther, the Toppers are now 14-5 and 3-0 in the MCC.
Hackbarth was a star on both offense and defense, contributing seven kills and 11 digs.
Freshman Sammie Seib also continued to impress, leading the team in kills with 11. She added seven digs.
Freshman Grace Antlfinger added 13 digs of her own. Junior Grace Spiegelhoff tallied seven kills and three serving aces.
All of those Lady Toppers doing their jobs led to a victory over the Lady Pacers in three straight sets – 25-23, 25-22, 28-26 in just over two hours.
“The Toppers fought point for point against Shoreland, and won the battle.”
Hulsey picks up tennis win
The girls Catholic Central tennis team had a tough go of it against Racine St. Catherine’s on Thursday, Sept. 7.
Senior Sydney Robson fell to Rachel Anderson, 6-0, 6-0.
Senior Cora Hulsey dropped her match to Kate Smith by the same scores.
Sophomore Claire Schilz lost to Anne Howard, 6-1, 6-0
However, Hulsey did enter the win column back on Tuesday, Sept. 5th against Dominican.
Playing number four singles, she defeated Layla McGee after falling behind 6-4 in the first set. Hulsey fought back to win the next two, 6-2 and 10-7, for the victory.
“Cora and Claire were more focused this week and are continuing to improve in their forehand and backhand, having multiple good rallies,” said Head Coach Maureen Lavin.
She added, “Sydney, who likes to challenge herself, played one of the top county players, by choice – St. Cat’s number one singles player.”
Looking ahead, Catholic Central will play The Prairie School on Thursday, Sept. 14.
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