Sports

Gillett’s Monte Noffke had a 77-yard kickoff return for a touchdown Friday in a Marinette & Oconto Conference game against Coleman in Coleman.

That was the only good news for the Gillett Secondary School football team (1-3, 0-2 M&O), which went on to lose the game 62-6.

Noffke was held in check for the rest of the game, rushing 13 times for -4 yards. Alex Zeitler completed eight passes for 113 yards and an interception. Six of those throws connected with Dylan Roberts for 103 yards.

Coleman running back Dexter Karban had 10 carries for 153 yards including a 54-yard touchdown run in the first quarter.

Coleman (3-1, 2-0 M&O) scored 24 points in each of the first and third quarters.

The Oconto Falls High School girls golf team finished tied with Seymour for seventh place at Thursday’s Bay Conference match at Shawano Lake Golf Course.

Denmark (191) and Marinette tied for first at the meet. Oconto Falls finished with a season-best 220 points.

“We’re chopping strokes off every time we go out,” Oconto Falls coach Paul Luebke said, “which is nice.”

Oconto Falls was led by Liz Coopman, who shot a 53. Julie Moore shot a 54, Amanda Blazer 55, Bridget Gorman 58 and Brittany Russell 66.

“Each girl had two bad holes,” Luebke said. “If we can start to clean up our mistakes and our three- or four-putt here and there, they can easily, each of them, take about three or four strokes off their score.”

The bad holes were part of playing a course like Shawano Lake, according to the coach.

“A couple of the holes are fairly tricky,” he said. “If you don’t make a good shot, it’s going to make you pay. It’s going to penalize you.”

Mike Friedman was halfway through his race and he was locked in. The Oconto Falls High School runner was virtually in a four-way tie with Little Chute’s Joe Van Grinsven and Freedom’s Matt Vosters and Sam Hinz. It wasn’t long after that the three other runners started to pull away, leaving Friedman in fourth.

That’s where the junior finished out of 142 athletes racing Friday in the Freedom Invitational at the Irish Waters Golf Club.

“I thought I ran good the first two miles, and the third mile I kind of fell off a little bit, but it’s early in the year and I think I’ll improve a lot throughout the year,” Friedman said. “I was hoping to come in and win it, but I just didn’t get it this time.”

After placing seventh in the same meet last season, Friedman was pleased to crack the top five.

“We had a long talk (Thursday) about what we wanted to do here, and it worked out for him,” Oconto Falls coach Lon Ludemann said.

The Gillett Secondary School football team lost 65-20 to Peshtigo in a Marinette & Oconto Conference game Friday in Gillett.

Alex Zeitler connected with Dylan Roberts on a 26-yard pass play for the Tiger’s only score of the first half, as Peshtigo pulled ahead 40-6. Zeitler and Roberts would connect again on a 32-yard touchdown pass in the fourth quarter.

“I thought we battled well for about a quarter and a half,” Gillett coach Rick Kamps said. “Then their physical dominance began to take over.”

Monte Noffke scored on a 5-yard run in the third quarter for Gillett (0-1 conference, 1-2 overall).

Zeitler, a sophomore, finished six of 10 passing for 117 yards, 100 of which was to Roberts on five throws.

“I thought Alex Zeitler showed his poise as he continued to make plays,” Kamps said.

Noffke had 17 carries for 83 yards and the score.

The Lena High School boys cross-country team was fifth at a meet Thursday in De Pere.

Lena had a team score of 166. Bay Port (20) won the meet, followed by Shawano (47), De Pere (63) and Green Bay Notre Dame Academy (109).

Evan Beranek led Lena, finishing 20th overall with a time of 18 minutes, 26 seconds. Justin Heimke finished in 19:27 to finish 30th overall.

Area Results

Boys: 1. Bay Port (20), 2. Shawano (47), 3. De Pere (63), 4. Green Bay Notre Dame Academy (109), 5. Lena (166), 6. Kewaunee (177), 7. Wrightstown (218)

Lena: 20. Evan Beranek, 18:26; 30. Justin Heimke, 19:27; 35. Casey Boyle, 19:44; 39. Mitchell Harvey, 20:23; 42. Jake Jones, 20:59; 43. Mike Schmidt, 21:18; 48. Henry Benson, 24:49

Suring beat by Coleman

The Suring High School volleyball team lost 3-1 to Coleman in a Marinette & Oconto Conference match Thursday in Suring. Suring lost the first two games 25-12, 25-16, then won the third 25-22 before losing the fourth game 25-16. Calley VanBellinger had 13 kills and eight digs. Kelsey School had nine assists and eight digs.

Gillett falls to Niagara

The Gillett Secondary School volleyball team lost to Niagara in three games Thursday in Gillett. Gillett lost 25-7, 25-11, 25-17. Brianna Lemirande had seven aces, three blocks and five kills. Jessica Anderson had 10 assists and three kills. Kara Brennan had seven blocks, seven kills, two aces and 12 digs. Taylor Kohls had nine kills and two aces.

Oconto Falls High School would join a 10-team Eastern Valley Conference in a proposed conference realignment plan recently released by the WIAA.

Under the plan, which is a revision of a plan released in April, Oconto Falls would be joined by current Bay Conference teams Marinette, Denmark and Luxemburg-Casco in the Eastern Valley, expanding that conference to 10 teams, while the Bay shrinks to eight teams.

Under the plan, the Eastern Valley would lose Appleton Xavier to the Bay.

In the Bay, Shawano, West De Pere, New London and Seymour would remain and the conference would add Green Bay East and Green Bay West from the Fox River Classic Conference and Menasha from the Fox Valley Association.

The Oconto Falls High School football team lost to seven-time Bay Conference champion West De Pere 58-7 Friday at Memorial Field in Oconto Falls.

“West De Pere is obviously one of the best in the state,” Oconto Falls coach Jeff Trochil said. “Our first quarter was not our best football. A lot of it was it took us a while to get used to how good they really were.”

West De Pere (2-0, 1-0 Bay) rolled to a 28-0 first quarter lead and was up 38-0 by halftime.

Trochil said his team played much better the rest of the way.

“I was very pleased with our effort,” Trochil said. “We had a big stop in the second quarter and forced them to take a field goal, kind of got it started defensively and offensively we moved the football and got some first downs on them. Against a team of that calibre, that was a big positive for our kids.”

With the return of seven letterwinners, expectations are high this season for the Oconto Falls High School volleyball team.

The players have adopted the motto, “One team, one dream.”

“I think I know what that dream is, but yet we’re not going to discuss that too soon,” Panthers coach Dawn Larsen said.

That dream could be a trip to the state tournament. The Panthers fell a couple of steps short last season, finishing 25-9 and losing to Notre Dame in a WIAA regional final.

The Oconto Falls players are confident and feeling improved from where they left off last year.

“They can feel it on the court and sometimes as the coach you can see it,” Larsen said.

Oconto Falls opened the season by going 4-1 in the Battle of the Valley at Neenah on Aug. 27. The Panthers were a perfect 3-0 in pool play and then lost 2-1 to Xavier before winning the third-place match 2-1 over Kimberly.

The Gillett Secondary School football team lost 43-29 to Tigerton/Marion in Marion on Thursday.

Gillett fell behind 14-0 but rallied to tie the game by the end of the first quarter.

The Tigers (1-1, 0-0 Marinette & Oconto Conference) took a brief 22-20 lead in the third quarter on a Monte Noffke 3-yard touchdown run but could not keep pace the rest of the way.

“I was proud of the way we battled back the entire night,” Gillett coach Rick Kamps said. “Once again, though, we couldn’t hold the lead.”

Gillett gave up 520 yards rushing to the Thundercatz, with Justin Miller racking up 346 yards on 22 carries.

As Tigerton/Marion (1-1, 0-0 Central Wisconsin Conference-10) was grinding it out on the ground, Gillett took to the air.