Colfax crushes McDonell in season finale
CHIPPEWA FALLS — After winning their season opener then dropping seven straight games, the Viking football team ended the season like they started, scoring a lot of points, earning a 40-15 win over McDonell Central at Dorais Field in Chippewa Falls Oct. 19. The coaching staff of both teams agreed to play both varsity players as well as junior varsity players, allowing seniors to finish off their high school careers as well as letting younger kids get a taste of playing at a higher level.
Colfax took a 7-0 lead when they scored on their opening drive, moving the ball 64 yards on eight plays as senior Michael Hover scored on a three yard run and Ethin Kiekhafer booted the extra point. On their next possession, two more seniors combined for another TD as quarterback Dillon Lloyd connected with Cody Zivcic for a seven yard pass and another Kiekhafer kick ended the first quarter with the Vikings up 14-0,
The Macks cut the lead in half when they picked up a loose ball and ran it into the endzone from 72 yards out and the half ended with Colfax up 14-7.
Junior Noah Pretasky increased the Vikings’ lead by returning a punt for a 58 yard score and Kiekhafer’s kick made it 21-7 midway through the third quarter, but McDonell responded with a 14 yard touchdown pass and a two point run to cut the Colfax lead to 21-15. Sophomore quarterback Sawyer DeMoe took off on a 19 yard scamper for six points and just 19 seconds later, Kiekhafer took a pick six to the endzone from 12 yards out, then kicked another point to end the third quarter with the Vike’s up 34-15. DeMoe tossed the first TD pass of his high school career to Andrew Adix with 7:29 left in the fourth quarter to end the scoring for the game.
“This was a great game to end our season with,” head coach Mark Maloney said. “Things didn’t go like we had hoped this year, but six of our losses were to conference teams and five of those teams went on to playoffs. And four of them won their first round game. That shows how tough the conference was and our guys played hard every game. We had just six seniors this year and two were injured and didn’t see much playing time (Austin Lee and Reed Gibson), and we will miss Cody Zivcic, Michael Hover Dillon Lloyd and Trevor Secraw. But we have a strong core of younger kids and if they work hard in the off season, we should see an improvement next year.”
DeMoe was the leading rusher against the Macks, running for 73 yards on six attempts. Freshman Kedar Davis added 37 yards on nine carries, while Pretasky picked up 31 yards on four rushes and Adix added 28 yards on five carries. Colfax totaled 195 rushing yards and 160 through the air as Lloyd was 7 for 16 for 105 yards and DeMoe completed 3 for 7 for 55 yards. Kiekhafer snared three passes for 37 yards, Hover caught two for 12 yards and Adix Logan Mittlestadt, Jeremiah Wait, Zivcic and Tucker Teige each snagged one.