Only one week remains in the 2021 regular season football schedule and the Spring Valley Cardinals football team has secured the 2021 Dunn-St. Croix Conference championship after a 28-14 win at home against Turtle Lake.

The Spring Valley win on Friday night improved Ryan Kapping’s Cardinals team record to 7-1 overall for the season, including a perfect 6-0 record in Dunn-St. Croix Conference play. Now, Spring Valley has a two-game lead in the standings because Boyceville and Elmwood/ Plum City are tied for second place with a 4-2 record. With only one game remaining in the regular season, Spring Valley has secured a conference championship.

The win for the Cardinals was their seventh straight victory after they started the season with a 33-14 loss at home against Durand on Friday, Aug. 20. Since that game, the Cardinals have played great football. Their smallest margin of victory in the last six weeks was the aforementioned game against Turtle Lake on Friday night which was 14 points.

The game against Turtle Lake began as many other games have for the explosive Cardinals’ offense. Spring Valley quarterback Connor Ducklow connected with wide receiver Tyler Bowman on a 70-yard touchdown pass to give the Cardinals a 7-0 lead just three minutes into the first quarter. The long touchdown strike for Ducklow was the whole passing attack for the night. From there, all of the damage was done in the rushing game.

Both teams got a couple of stops on defense and the scoring slowed down in the second quarter. The lone score was again Spring Valley. This time it was running back Jackson Stein, who scored on a oneyard touchdown run to give the Cardinals a 14-0 advantage going into the half.

The Spring Valley scoring continued throughout the third quarter. With 7:37 remaining in the third, Cardinals running back Tristan Neisinger scored on a two-yard touchdown run which was followed by a successful PAT to extend the Cardinals’ lead to 21-0.

Spring Valley iced the game with just over two minutes remaining in the third quarter when running back Justin Rielly scored on a 31-yard touchdown run to make the score 28-0 in favor of the Cardinals.

Turtle Lake showed signs of life in the fourth quarter when the Lakers scored on 19-yard and 86-yard touchdown passes to make the score 28-14. However, Spring Valley got the ball back and ran out the clock for a 28-14 victory.

Spring Valley will play its final game of the regular season on Friday, Oct. 15, on the road against Cadott. That game is slated to begin at 7 p.m.

River Falls secures Mississippi Valley Conference championship

Spring Valley wasn’t the only team to secure at least a share of the conference championship on Friday night. The River Falls High School Wildcats also earned at a minimum a share of the Mississippi Valley Conference championship after a 36-27 victory on the road against Onalaska.

Wildcats head coach Ryan Scherz spoke about what the conference championship means to his team and what they intend to do moving forward.

“Being a conference champion is a byproduct of playing to our standard each week, regardless of opponent,” Scherz said. “We will need to keep improving to play as deep into the playoff as we intend to.”

The game against Onalaska is a good example of what Scherz and the Wildcats can expect to see once the playoffs begin in two weeks. The game was not only competitive, but Onalaska, at least for the first half, was outplaying RFHS.

In the first quarter, River Falls put the first points on the board when senior quarterback Vito Massa connected with wide receiver Jordan Karras on a 33-yard touchdown pass to give the Wildcats a 7-0 lead.

In the second quarter, the Onalaska offense started doing damage. Onalaska running back Brady Kuhn capped off a long drive with a two-yard touchdown carry to tie the game 7-7. Each team added another touchdown in the closing minutes of the first half. The only difference was that River Falls missed its extra point. Therefore, Onalaska went into the half with a 14-13 lead over the Wildcats. Coach Scherz spoke about the first half of action and about the adjustments that were made before the second half.

“Our guys responded to adversity when we found ourselves down at the half,” Scherz said. “I was proud of how they came out, especially on defense, to get some stops. The offensive line, tight ends and fullbacks also did a great job of adjusting to some of the things Onalaska was doing in the first half. They got our running game going.”

In the second half, the River Falls offense made a statement by scoring 23 points in 24 minutes of game time. The first River Falls touchdown of the half was a 30-yard pass from Massa to senior tight end Ethan Campbell to give RFHS a 1914 lead. After the game, Scherz spoke about the passing game and what Massa contributes to the Wildcats’ offense.

“Our passing game is important because we try to stay balanced, which makes us difficult to defend,” Scherz said. “We truly believe that taking away parts of our run game will open up other things. Vito (Massa) has consistently taken advantage of those opportunities. He just needs to distribute the ball to (Michael) Schurman, Campbell, (Cade) Myszewski, and Karras in the passing game within the scheme of our offense.”

The Wildcats’ explosive second-half offensive performance was the driving force in the 36-27 River Falls victory to secure a conference championship and remain undefeated in conference play. The final game of the regular season for River Falls is on Friday, Oct. 15, on the road against Sparta. A win in that game would give RFHS an outright conference championship with no shared title. That game is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.

Elmwood/Plum City routes Colfax in 36-0 win

The 36-0 victory for Elmwood/ Plum City over Colfax was not only a confidence booster for the roster and the coaching staff, but it was also the team’s fourth Dunn-St. Croix Conference victory meaning that the team will finish with an above .500 record in conference play, thus, guaranteeing the team a playoff spot.

The win for Elmwood/Plum City featured another dominant performance on the ground. They scored five touchdowns in the Friday night victory, all of them came from the rushing attack. The Wolves only had two passing attempts that totaled 18 yards through the air.

However, what was lacking in the passing game was more than compensated for in the rushing attack. The damage was done primarily through Trevor Asher and Luke Webb who had 212 and 139 rushing yards respectively. Asher accounted for four of the team’s five touchdowns. In total, the Wolves had 391 rushing yards and Colfax’s defense simply couldn’t compete with the size and speed of Elmwood/Plum City.

Next week the Wolves wrap up their regular season action with one final conference game against the Turtle Lake Lakers. That game will be played at Plum City High School and will begin at 7 p.m.

Prescott falls to undefeated Aquinas

On Friday night the Prescott Cardinals lost their second straight game for the first time all season. The 32-15 defeat came against an 8-0 Aquinas team that currently leads the Coulee Conference standings.

Aquinas is a private school powerhouse in several sports and football is no exception to that. The explosive athletes demonstrated size and speed just seconds into the game when kick returner Collin Conzemius took the opening kickoff 85 yards to the house for a special teams touchdown to start the game. A successful pass on the two-point conversion gave Aquinas an 8-0 lead just 13 seconds into the game.

Going into the half, Prescott trailed 19-6, but remained down only two possessions and were set to receive the second half kick. However, the Prescott offense couldn’t get anything substantial going against the Aquinas defense and points came at a premium for the Cardinals.

As for the Aquinas offense, they scored two touchdowns in the third quarter to open up the scoring. The first was a sevenyard touchdown run by Joe Penchi and the second was a 32-yard touchdown pass from Jackson Flottmeyer to Calvin Hargrove to give Aquinas a 329 lead with one minute remaining in the third quarter.

The fourth quarter began with a three-yard touchdown run by Aiden Russell of the Prescott Cardinals to make the score 32-15. Aquinas successfully ran the clock for the rest of the game and left Prescott with a 32-15 win to remain undefeated for the season.

The final game of the regular season for Prescott is on Friday, Oct. 15, on the road against Osceola, the secondbest team by record in the Middle Border Conference. That game will kickoff at 7 p.m.

Prescott’s Phil Seifert grabs a pass over a La Crosse Aquinas defender Friday night at Laney Field. Aquinas defeated the Cards 35-14. Photo courtesy of Faun Stanton

Wildcat quarterback Vito Massa fires a pass during the Wildcats’ victory at Onalaska Friday, Oct. 8. Massa was recently named one of 29 semi-finalists for the Dave Krieg Award. The Dave Krieg Award is given annually to the state’s top senior quarterback as part of the WSN Senior Football Awards. Photo courtesy of Monica Weick