Green Bay West football ends 30-year playoff drought

The Green Bay West football team likely had done enough entering its final game of the regular season to make the WIAA playoffs.

But after waiting 30 long and agonizing years, it left no doubt.

West beat Sheboygan South 28-14 on Oct. 16, earning a spot in the postseason for the first time since 1996 and ending the Green Bay metro area’s longest playoff drought.

As losses piled up during the last three decades, the program cycled through 10 coaches and had 11 seasons in which it didn’t win a single game.

It would have been difficult to blame anybody for wondering if this moment would come again.

Forever is a long time, but that’s how long it sometimes felt.

The solution?

Keep the same coach around for five seasons like Drew Brusoe and his staff, the same athletic director for four years like Robb LaPlant and the same principal or assistant principal for 14 years like Dexter McNabb, and stability sometimes can go a long way.

Don’t forget the players, like senior linebacker Luke Rissling. He has been on varsity since he was a freshman and developed into one of the best in the Fox River Classic Conference-South by the time he was a junior.

Rissling had the talent to transfer to another school and play for a contender each year of his career.

Instead, he stuck it out. He wanted to change the way people view West football.

“It means everything,” Rissling said. “Over the last four years, I’ve been through a lot. I’ve been tasked with a lot of leadership here. I gave a little speech yesterday, and I just get emotional talking about it. I couldn’t be prouder looking around our practice. Looking around our meetings.

“Just knowing that we have built a standard that established such a high quality of character for each and every single one of these young men. We have completely changed the narrative. I cannot be more proud and more fulfilled with the group of guys we have had, and I’m so happy that it’s been able to be this group of guys that I have done it with.”

Brusoe said in August he believed this was the best team he has had during his time leading the program.

After winning six games, it turns out he wasn’t bold enough in his proclamation.

West easily had its best season, not just in the past five years but the entire century. It won more than three games in a season for the first time since the 1996 squad went 6-4.

The 193 points it has scored is the most since that ’96 team had 221.

The Wildcats have put up 35 or more points in a game three times for the first time since 1966, which is tied for the second-best mark in the storied history of a program that was formed in 1898.

The 1953 team holds the school record, scoring 35 or more points in seven of its eight games.

“It has taken a lot of hard work, right?” said Brusoe, whose 12 career victories is the most for a West coach since Mike Williquette won 52 in 10 seasons from 1987 to 1996. “At times, especially in Year 1 and 2, it was like, ‘What can we do to get some sort of momentum?’

“The kids found a way to win. They found a way to earn another week. That’s the message we talk about. Are you willing to do what it takes to earn another week?”

Green Bay West jumps out to early lead against Sheboygan South

West scored a touchdown on the opening drive of the game against South on a 5-yard run from junior running back Kash Lowe, who had 50 yards on five carries during the series and had more than 125 by halftime.

The Wildcats led wire-to-wire, with Lowe scoring all three of their TDs in the first 24 minutes to take a 21-8 lead at halftime.

Their defense was just as good early on, with the Redwings’ only score in the first two quarters coming on a kickoff return from Jeremiah Appleton.

As fun as the night was for West, it came with a potentially big price.

Senior quarterback Urijah Moore injured a knee on a run with 24 seconds left in the opening quarter. He was on the medical table for a considerable amount of time after being helped off the field and eventually was carted off to the locker room.

When he returned, he was on crutches. Although everybody is hoping for the best, there is a possibility his prep career is over.

The offense sputtered a bit at times without Moore, who entered the game having thrown for 757 yards and rushing for 389 this season, but it was able to score its final TD of the first half without him after a 9-yard run from Lowe with 8:45 left in the second quarter.

The Redwings finally started to find some success on offense in the second half, highlighted by a 76-yard TD run from Jovan Adamavich that cut the West lead to 21-14 with 8:32 remaining in the third quarter.

It looked like it was going to go from bad to worse for West on South’s next possession, when Adamavich broke another big run before quarterback Austen Dekker added a 25-yard scramble that got the Redwings to the West 7.

That's when a West defense that sometimes bends did not break.

It held Adamavich to three yards on the first two plays and then sacked Dekker on third down before a penalty on South knocked it all the way back to the West 25.

Dekker completed a pass to Appleton, who reached the 10 before getting tackled and ending the drive on downs.

The West defense did its job. It was time for the offense to do the same.

The Wildcats took over with 14 seconds left in the third quarter. They marched down the field on 15 plays that covered 90 yards, capped on a 1-yard run from Rissling to put West up by two TDs.

The drive took all but the final 4:31 off the clock.

At that point, it simply was about counting down the final minutes before the celebration could start.

“I knew it was possible,” Rissling said of finally making the playoffs. “I’m a firm believer. I contemplated going other places, but I had a wrestling coach and a quote that I learned that was actually my senior quote tonight.

“The grass is never greener on the other side. The grass is greener where you water it. Be the person that waters the community and the people around you, and watch your goals grow into reality. That’s what I wrote for my senior quote, and it’s something I am going to live by for the rest of my life and something I am grateful I was able to learn here at Green Bay West.”