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By Paul Lecker
MarshfieldAreaSports.com
Last season the Spencer/Marshfield Columbus Catholic football team needed to win its final game against Colby to qualify for the WIAA playoffs.
The Rockets suffered a loss to the conference champions and missed the postseason. In order to avoid another must-win showdown with a talented Colby team in the final week, they need to win their next three games – all against teams in the lower half of the Cloverbelt Conference.
“We’ve been talking about that – we’re starting the playoffs now,” Spencer/Columbus coach Greg Oestreich said. “We need to win to get in. Very seldom do we talk about our record, our players have been outstanding worrying about the next week.
“We just have to deal with preparing for the next game and that if we keep working hard, good things will happen.”
The stretch of three must-win games for Spencer/Columbus (1-4, 1-3 Cloverbelt) starts Saturday against Cadott (1-4, 1-3 Cloverbelt) in Columbus’ homecoming game at Beell Stadium in Marshfield. Kickoff is slated for 1 p.m. Winless Altoona and Neillsville are up the next two weeks before the season finale at Colby.
The Rockets are coming off two straight losses, including a strange 48-28 loss at Eau Claire Regis last Saturday. Regis used a unique formation on kickoffs and recovered three onside kicks that limited Spencer/Columbus’ offensive possessions.
Regis racked up 511 yards, 409 on the ground, and the Rockets were limited to nine first downs.
Spencer/Columbus was effective throwing late, as quarterbacks Jordan Buss and Paul Selz threw for a total of 194 yards and put up 21 points in the fourth quarter.
This week against Cadott, the Rockets will have to stop running back Alex Glomski, who had 246 yards rushing in a win over Altoona two weeks ago. Glomski is second in the Cloverbelt with 618 yards on the ground.
“Having seen many of their games on tape, and last week’s in person, they run a power-I, they have a nice quarterback (Roy Munroe) who’s a pretty good athlete and their tailback (Glomski) is not real big, but he’s pretty quick,” Oestreich said.
Since the Spencer and Columbus started the co-op football program nearly a decade ago the team has played one game a season in Marshfield to celebrate Columbus’ homecoming. Oestreich said he always points out to his teams how important it is to remember the school’s rich football tradition.
“It’s pretty important to the Spencer kids too, to realize the history Columbus has,” Oestreich said. “One thing I do bring up a fair amount of times is that Columbus football has a tradition of their own. They have such a rich history of football there. For them to play at Beell, wearing the blue uniforms, it is important to remember that history and this game is a big part of that.”