Chris Caporale, sports@wolfrivermedia.com
Leader Photo by Chris Caporale Shawano Community High School running back Kien Moorman finds a hole on a fourth-and-one carry in the first half of the Hawks’ 40-18 loss to Xavier. Moorman rushed 27 times for 155 yards and two second-half TDs.
Xavier took control in the running game and withstood a third-quarter surge from the Shawano Hawks for a 40-18 victory Friday in Shawano.
Shawano cut the Xavier lead to eight points with five minutes left in the third quarter after the second of Kien Moorman’s two touchdown runs. Xavier went on a six-minute drive, ending in an Adam Drees 11-yard TD run to extend the lead.
A bad snap on third down for the Hawks gave Xavier possession again in Shawano territory. Hunter Plamann’s touchdown put Xavier ahead 34-12.
“We needed to change the momentum in this game from their offense, and we had to make it about our offense because there was a window in there where they were going to do whatever they wanted to do,” Xavier head coach David Hinkens said.
The Hawks answered when Jack Hanauer found Dylan Sumnicht for a 48-yard score, but the Shawano defense couldn’t keep the visitors out of the end zone at the end.
Shawano was averaging nearly 38 points per game entering Friday’s showdown. The 18 points for the hosts was their lowest output on the season.
“We were down two scores with 4 or 5 minutes left and we had them on fourth down, and we couldn’t get the stop,” Shawano head coach Al Tomow said. “We were in it all the way through, we just couldn’t get the stop when we needed to on defense.”
Two late first-half scores by Adam Drees, within 35 seconds of each other, put Shawano behind early.
The Hawks’ offense struggled to find rhythm in the first half. Moorman came up with big plays, including a 26-yard run on fourth-and-one to push Shawano almost to the red zone. The drive stalled from there, though, with the Hawks turning it over on downs with 3:44 left in the second quarter.
Hanauer broke the school’s career passing yards record with a 19-yard completion to Sumnicht in the third quarter. Hanauer passed Chase Quinney, a 2007 graduate, with 3,443 yards.
Hanauer, who finished the game 10 for 30 passing for 161 yards and two interceptions, could not find any holes in the read option offense either.
“The No. 1 thing we wanted to do was stop their quarterback from running the football. That was our primary goal,” Hinkens said. “Everything feeds off of him running, so we had to take that out, and that’s what our goal was, and I thought we did a pretty good job of that.”
Xavier (4-4, 4-3 Bay Conference) drove down the field after a big run from Plamann, and a 35-yard completion to David Popelka took the ball down to the 11. Drees bounced a run to the left side before finding his way into the end zone.
Shawano’s next play was an interception on a tipped pass, and three plays later, Drees had his third score of the night for a 20-0 lead.
Plamann completed six of his nine passes for 97 yards while rushing for 157 yards. Drees finished the game with 118 yards and four scores on the ground.
Keeping the Shawano offense down for the duration of the game was going to be a challenge for Xavier, especially after Shawano recovered an onside kick to start the second half.
“If there’s any team in the state that’s going to come back at us, it’s going to be this one,” Hinkens said. “In the third quarter, they were going to throw some punches at us, and they did. We anticipated it.”
Moorman led the rushing attack with 27 carries for 155 yards and two scores. Sumnicht finished the game with six catches for 110 yards.
Shawano (5-3, 4-3 Bay) expected to play Xavier tougher, especially after defeating Waupaca handily last week.
“We don’t want to feel like this ever again,” Tomow said. “This is a tough loss for us against a team we thought we should have been a little more competitive with and we thought we had a chance to beat them.”
The turnaround is quick, however, with West De Pere (7-1, 6-1 Bay) waiting to close out the regular season on Friday.
Xavier 40, Shawano 18
Team 1 2 3 4 F
Xavier 7 13 0 20 40
Shawano 0 0 12 6 18
First quarter
X: Adam Drees 1-yard run (PAT good) 7-0 (0:48).
Second quarter
X: Drees 11-yard run (PAT good) 14-0 (0:55).
X: Drees 2-yard run (PAT missed) 20-0 (0:21).
Third quarter
S: Kien Moorman 20-yard run (conversion missed) 20-6 (10:08).
S: Moorman 5-yard run (conversion missed) 20-12 (5:00).
Fourth quarter
X: Drees 11-yard run (PAT good) 27-12 (10:54).
X: Plamann 16-yard run (PAT good) 34-12 (5:55).
S: Dylan Sumnicht 48-yard reception from Jack Hanauer (conversion missed) 34-18 (4:37).
X: Plamann 34-yard run (PAT missed) 40-18 (2:22).