This story is sponsored by Forward Bank
By Steve Pilz
For MarshfieldAreaSports.com
AUBURNDALE – The Auburndale Eagles football team had a pretty good week.
Last Friday, the Eagles snapped Colby’s long winning streak while nabbing a share of the Marawood Conference title and this week they came in as a No. 3 seed in Level 1 of the WIAA Divison 6 playoffs and handled No. 6 seed Fall Creek 47-20 at Auburndale High School.
Auburndale quarterback Trayton Weber was a touchdown machine again for the Eagles, rushing it in four times and throwing two others to pace the offense. He finished with 136 yards on 19 carries and threw for 123 more on 9 of 15 throws with two interceptions.
Weber got the Eagles on the board first at the 5:48 mark of the first quarter on a three-yard rushing TD. He went to the air at the start of the second period when he hit Kaden Andedrson on a picture-perfect fade into the left corner of the end zone on third-and-13 to make it 13-0. Weber hooked up with Anderson again just two minutes later on a 40-yard pitch and catch to make it 19-0.
Having no luck on the ground, or anywhere else for that matter, Fall Creek took to the air, chucking it 19 times in the second quarter alone and reached paydirt on a five-yard scoring strike from quarterback Eli Laube to Ben Vollrath for the Crickets first score with five minutes left in the half.
Laube’s live arm garnered 242 yards in total, going 20-for-32 with two interceptions.
Vollrath faired equally as well hauling in six passes for 70 yards, but the Crickets were fighting an uphill battle with Auburndale’s strong defense and Weber on the field.
“They provided a lot of different looks and different formations in the passing game for sure,” said Auburndale coach Jay Anderson. “They mixed things up and did a nice job of hitting the holes. They scouted us up good and made us work on getting better on some things.
“We were better than what we played tonight, so the score tonight can be deceiving. We had a 19-0 lead and then we were flat. They challenged us up front and made us work.”
Evan Scholl ran in a two-yard TD on the ground at the start of the third and when Weber cashed it again from the 25 about a minute later the rout was on.
Weber would run it in from the three two more times to provide a running clock with just less than eight minutes left in the game.
An opportunistic Eagles’ defense picked Laube off twice and recovered three fumbles to stymie the Crickets.
“Mondovi’s solid,” said Anderson of the Eagles’ next opponent, which won 43-14 over Augusta on Friday. “It’s hard to look far ahead. They’ve only lost to Regis. We’ll have to travel and play better than tonight. We’ll have to play better and I think we can.”,
Eagles 47, Crickets 20
Fall Creek 0 6 6 8 – 20
Auburndale 7 12 15 13 – 47
First Quarter
A – Trayton Weber 3 run (Aden Cherney kick), 5:48.
Second Quarter
A – Kaden Anderson 10 pass from Weber (kick failed), 11:20.
A – Anderson 40 pass from Weber (run failed), 9:03.
FC – Bo Vollrath 5 from Eli Laube (run failed), 5:14.
Third Quarter
A – Evan Scholl 2 run (Tim Schmitt pass from Weber), 9:36.
A – Weber 25 run (Cherney kick), 8:40.
FC – Jacob Wathke 11 pass from Laube (kick failed), 3:57.
Fourth Quarter
A – Weber 3 run (kick failed), 11:55.
A -Weber 3 run (Cherney kick), 7:44.
FC – Leo Hagburg 88 pass from Laube (Jeffrey Ritger run), 4:40.
Team Statistics
First downs: FC 13; A 21
Rushing (att.-yards): FC 22-39; A 48-345.
Passing (comp-att-yards-int): FC 21-33-255-2; A 9-15-123-2.
Total yards: FC 294; A 468.
Fumbles (total-lost): FC 3-3; A 1-1.
Penalties (no.-yards): FC 5-25; A 4-30.
Individual Statistics
Rushing: FC, Ryan Whittlinger 14-37. A, Weber 19-136, Scholl 17-128, Anderson 8-84.
Passing: FC, Laube 20-32-242-2. A, Weber 9-15-123-2.
Receiving: FC, Vollrath 6-70, Wathke 5-28, Ben Kelly 4-13, Whittlinger 3-40, Hagburg 1-88. A, Cherney 4-53, Anderson 2-53, Alex Wilfahrt 2-17, Schmitt 1-3.
Records: Fall Creek 7-3; Auburndale 10-1.