Manawa sets sights on conference title
By Greg Seubert
Good things happen to teams that win Central Wisconsin-Large Conference football championships.
That’s been the case the last few years, as the last four champions won a WIAA state championship and the last six played for a state title.
Manawa coach Brad Johnson believes his Wolves have the potential to join that elite group.
“Our goal is to win a conference title,” he said. “After that, it’s to win playoff games, with an ‘s’ at the end. After we do that, then we’ll start talking about state. Right now, we have to win conference.”
The Wolves posted a 4-3 record in conference play last year and qualified for the WIAA playoffs in Division 5, but saw their season end with a 31-16 first-round loss to Auburndale.
“We want to take what we did last year and continue to improve on it,” Johnson said. “We figured this was going to be a few-years’ cycle. We started six freshmen two years ago and now they’re juniors. We’re just excited to see where it might take us.”
Manawa graduated a handful of all-conference players, including first-team defensive lineman Dakota Lane and defensive back Nate Reynolds and second-teamers Ethan Wiesner (defensive lineman) and Seth Forbes (running back).
Returning players
Returning players back include first-team junior offensive lineman Andrew Elmhorst; and second-team juniors Mason Wiesner (quarterback) and Jackson Jaeger (utility player).
“Jackson Jaeger has been a beast in the past year,” Johnson said. “He took second at nationals in powerlifting and he runs a 4.6. We have four really nice running backs that we’re excited about and we have a couple playmakers at receiver with (Riley) Krenke and Kenny (Reynolds). Defensively, we lost Dakota Lane and Ethan Wiesner, but we’re not trying to be them. Our kids are really just focused in on being the best ‘you’ you can be.”
Holly Neumann Photo
The Wolves held their first practice Aug. 6.
“They were definitely ready to go,” Johnson said. “It’s a positive group and that’s really nice. Our youth is really growing because of that now and hopefully, that’ll translate into them helping the varsity guys out and helping them getting to where they need to be.”
He expects his team to build on last year’s success that included CWC-L wins over Pacelli, Shiocton, Wittenberg-Birnamwood and Weyauwega-Fremont and nonconference victories over Suring and Auburndale.
“We have a lot of guys that put a lot of time in in the off-season,” he said. “They did a lot of lifting and running and making sure they’re getting their times down. We have six or seven guys that run below 4.9 (seconds). We have a lot of fast players, so we’re really hinging on our O-line. If they have a good season, we’re going to have a good season. If they don’t, then we probably won’t. That’s what it comes down to. We had a really nice defensive line and a pretty darn good defensive season last year. We’re just looking to improve on it. They put the work in, so we’ll see.”
Tough conference
Now that Pacelli has moved from the CWC-Large to the CWC-Small, the Wolves’ schedule includes six conference games and three nonconference matchups.
“This conference is a dogfight every week,” Johnson said. “Games you think you’re supposed to win, they come out and play a perfect game against you. That’s why we beefed up our schedule up at the beginning of the year. We didn’t want any unrealistic expectations of what or who we were going into our conference season.”
The Wolves will open the season with a pair of nonconference games at Markesan and at home against Kewaunee. Both teams made the playoffs last year, with Kewaunee getting to Level 3 before falling to eventual Division 6 runner-up Stratford.
“Markesan, they’re awesome, they’re a tough program, and everybody knows Kewaunee’s history,” Johnson said. “We’re just excited to go out and compete against these teams. If you go 2-0, you still have a conference schedule to play. Our goal is to get out there, compete and whatever happens happens.
“For many years, we played either average or maybe below-average competition and it doesn’t really work out for us when we’d play Iola or Amherst,” he said. “We wanted some premier programs and go play some guys that are either on the rise or were just at the top. We want to find where we stand early, not in week five. We used to ride high into a couple of tough games and then go 0-3 when we’d play Bonduel, Iola and Amherst. The next thing you know, we’re 3-3. We’ll know right away if we’re a 3-3 team or a 6-0 team.”
Coach wants to win conference
Having only six conference games makes them all important, according to Johnson.
“You have to win three to get into the playoffs,” he said. “Our goal has been the same since it was at the end of last season: win conference. You win conference, you have a chance at state.”
Johnson said the Wolves learned a valuable lesson with last year’s early exit from the playoffs.
“We had 465 yards of offense, six turnovers and 16 penalties,” he said. “We were in the right spot, it just wasn’t our day. We just have to learn how to finish. (Amherst coach Mark) Lusic’s teams know how to finish. (Iola-Scandinavia coach Scott) Erickson knows how to finish. As soon as we learn how to do that, we’ll be a ball club to reckon with.”