West De Pere wins defensive slugfest over Notre Dame

DE PERE – Phenomenal.

It’s the word West De Pere football coach Jack Batten used to described his defense’s performance Friday.

The Phantoms were just that in defeating Notre Dame Academy 17-3 in a WIAA Division 3 state quarterfinal game.

West De Pere will attempt to advance to state for the first time since winning back-to-back titles in 2010 and 2011 when it faces Rice Lake next week.

The Phantoms (12-0) got a championship-type effort from their defense against Notre Dame, which was limited to 177 yards and a season-low point total.

“Our defense played a phenomenal football game tonight,” Batten said. “They practiced really well this week. Our scout team offense did a great job running plays so we could see as many reps as we could possibly get.”

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After allowing the Tritons (9-3) to march 66 yards in 11 plays and get a 22-yard field goal by Brandon Limoni on the Tritons’ first drive of the game, West De Pere dominated for the remainder of the contest.

The only other time Notre Dame was able to run plays inside Phantoms’ territory, West De Pere came away with the game’s lone turnover as senior linebacker Evan Frisque recovered a fumble with 52 seconds remaining in the first half.

The Tritons did manage to move into West De Pere territory in the second half when senior Wes Glime found senior Cade Vanhout for a 13-yard gain to move the ball to the Phantoms’ 49, but it came on a fourth-and-14 .

“Our defense just played lights out,” Batten said. “I know (Notre Dame) was short-handed without their two receivers, but whenever you have (Glime) at quarterback you have a good offense. We were able to put pressure on him and our backend did a really good job covering receivers.”

Glime completed 11 of 24 passes for 106 yards, while Limoni rushed for 54 of the Tritons’ 71 rushing yards in the game.

After falling to Notre Dame 28-7 in the state quarterfinals last year, West De Pere played mostly a man-to-man defense and unleashed an array of blitzes to neutralize the Tritons.

“They had a lot of pressure,” Notre Dame coach Mike Rader said. “They really came at us and put a lot of pressure on us. They didn’t give Wes a lot of time to make reads and throw to some guys who I thought were open. But they brought more (pressure) consistently and it was working.”

Junior Cody Cavil made five tackles, two tackles for loss and a sack for the West De Pere defense, which made six pass breakups, including three by junior Ben Pawlak. Pawlak and senior Isiah Burdette each finished with a team-high six tackles.

West De Pere had a 12-minute advantage in time of possession, chewing almost 8 minutes off the clock at the start of fourth quarter during a 14-play, 74-yard drive that culminated with a Sawyer Grovogel 22-yard field goal with 4:59 left in the game to extend the lead to 14 points.

The key play on the drive was a 37-yard completion from sophomore quarterback Josh Blount to senior Garrett Kempen.

Blount scored on a pair of short touchdowns on back-to-back drives in the second quarter to give the Phantoms’ a commanding 14-3 lead going into halftime of a defensive slugfest.

Blount finished with 75 rushing yards, while junior Sam Mommaerts recorded 103 rushing yards on 20 carries as Notre Dame limited the Phantoms to their lowest point total of the season. Before Friday night, West De Pere’s closest game was a 19-point win over Luxemburg-Casco.

Junior Jack Kress made a team-high 11 tackles to lead the Tritons, while seniors Fuzz French, Josh Cribben and Mitch Chosa each tallied seven tackles.

“Being able to play in a November game is a special thing,” Rader said. “Not many teams get to say that they’ve done that. We’ve been able to do that for four years in a row and our seniors did a great job of continuing that tradition and setting the stage for the young guys to see what it takes.”

West De Pere will face Rice Lake at Stiehm Stadium in Weston. The Phantoms lost 34-31 to Rice Lake in its last state semifinal appearance in 2014.

“We had just an unbelievably spirited week of practice last week,” Batten said. “And I would be shocked if we didn’t get the same thing this week.”