Super Bowl Matchup

          The NFC and AFC championship games lived up to the hype and were great football games. The Patriots and Giants are headed to the Super Bowl based off of some major mistakes by 49ers and Ravens.

In the AFC Championship game, the Patriots had a 23-20 lead with just under two minutes left. The Ravens had the ball and had to go approximately 70 yards to go for the score. Joe Flacco calmly led them down the field against the Patriots 31^st ranked defense. He threw a pass into the end zone that Lee Evans (former Badger great) had in his hands before Sterling Moore stripped it out of his hands. If he would have caught it, the Ravens would have won. Instead, the Ravens were forced to kick a field goal to plays later to send it into overtime. Billy Cundiff, last year’s AFC Pro Bowl kicker, promptly shanked a 32 yard field goal. All that was left was a kneel down by Tom Brady, and the Patriots were in the Super Bowl. It was absolutely heartbreaking to watch.

          Now, all that was left to see is who they would play. The NFC Championship game was an even better game. The 49ers had a 14-10 lead before they muffed a punt. The Giants got the ball and went 30 yards for a touchdown pass. The 49ers kicked a field goal late in the fourth quarter to knot it up at 17. Each team then had multiple opportunities to score, but it went to overtime.

The Giants won the toss. According to the playoff overtime rules, a touchdown wins the game (Tim Tebow’s 80 yard touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas when the Broncos beat the Steelers). If a field goal is made, the other team gets one possession to try and tie it. This never happened as both teams turned up the heat on the quarterback in the overtime. It came down to another special teams problem for the 49ers. This time the punt returner, Kyle Williams, had the ball stripped as he turned up field. The Giants fell on it and were in position to win it immediately. Lawrence Tynes kicked a 31 yard field a few plays later, and the Giants were in the Super Bowl.

This game is a rematch of Super Bowl 42 from four years ago. The Patriots came into the game undefeated and looked to become the second team in NFL history to go undefeated and win the Super Bowl. In a play forever known as “The Catch”, Eli Manning escapes pressure and chucks it deep to David Tyree who pins it against his helmet as he out-jumps Patriots safety Rodney Harrison. That play set up the Plaxico Burress touchdown which won them the Super Bowl.

Many already see this game as redemption for the Patriots. I personally hope that does not happen. I was rooting for the 49ers and Ravens to go to the Super Bowl, but obviously that did not happen. I hate picking the team that beat the Packers, but I just cannot give the Patriots my Super Bowl pick. Hopefully the Giants win the rematch.

Ozaukee Boys Basketball

Quick disclaimer: This article was created on December 18th as well, but was published today.

              It is a lot of fun to be part of the Ozaukee boys’ basketball team. Our record (when this article was written) is 4-2 overall and 3-1 in conference.  Our record does not even come close to saying it all though.

The first games were a great way to start of the year. Against Sheboygan Christian, we had a big lead, but let it slip away in the closing minutes. We still won by 18. Multiple people had their first varsity points. Then we played Kohler. We played stifling defense and held Kohler to 27 points. We won that game 59-27 and held Kohler to only 2 points in the fourth quarter.

Then it was the Port Washington game. The last time that we had played Port was 2002. I had the game circled on the calendar for a long time because my stepbrother, Zach Hauser, is one of their starters. Our family was extremely excited for the game. My stepmom sewed a shirt together that had Port Washington on one side and Ozaukee on the other. A day before the game began; we were dealt a huge blow. Pat Kroening was out until January 6. We really missed him that game.  In a very sloppy game, Port Washington beat Ozaukee 50 to 43. We made a late charge, but it was too little, too late.

Then on that Thursday, it was off to Oostburg. They won the conference last year and beat us in regionals. It was a dogfight the whole way. We were down by a couple at halftime. In the third quarter, Eric Hartnett dominated. He was given the ball at least 7 times in a row down the floor and scored nearly every time. We opened the fourth quarter with a 1 point lead, before Oostburg took over and won 59-43. I cannot wait to play them again at home.

Last Tuesday, we faced a tough non-conference opponent in the Kiel Raiders. We faced adversity well, with Doug Grimm, Eric Hartnett, and Steve Street getting hurt in the game. All 3 came back at the end and played a crucial role in the outcome. Eric had a career high 29 points on basically one leg, and Doug made 4 clutch free throws in the last 45 seconds. We went 13/14 from the free throw line in that game which was very impressive.

On Friday, we played Random Lake. It was parents’ nights, silent night, and the fight for the jersey, which only added more fuel to the fire of a game against our biggest rival. The JV got their first win of the season.  Then all of the parents were announced. Warm-ups ended with Justin Shininger’s awesome rendition of the National Anthem on the guitar. Starters were announced and the team tebowed. After that, the gym was eerily quiet. The Random Lake fans had a lot to cheer about and they took an early lead. Ozaukee fans followed the tradition of Silent Night and were quiet until Ozaukee scored their 10^th point. It took a long time. With about 4 minutes left in the second quarter, Steve Street stole the ball and dribbled down for a fast break dunk. It was our 11^th point and the crowd went crazy. Random Lake was forced to call a timeout. After that, the crowd never let up. We were still trailing by 10 in the third quarter when the group of Andy Richter, Owen Miller, Tyler Bares, Steve Street, and Eric Hartnett gave us a lead with four minutes left in the game. It was back and forth down the stretch. With less than a minute left, each time was at the free throw line a couple of times from some interesting calls both ways. From what I remember, Doug hit one of two free throws. . Next it was Andy Richter’s turn, and he hit two huge free throws. Then, Evan Rathke of Random Lake went to the line and missed both free throws. Eric got the rebound and was forced into a turnover. Then the defense made a great stop, and Ozaukee escaped with a victory. Andy was able to take home the jersey which is a Random Lake jersey sewed together with an Ozaukee jersey. Whoever wins gets to keep it in their display case until the next matchup. The tradition was ironically started by Mr. Ketterhagen and Coach Krier. At the time he was coaching for Random Lake, but this year switched sides and is an assistant under Coach K.

The Ozaukee Warriors are off to a great start. We are looking to build off of the momentum from this tough win against Random Lake, and head into this week with game at Kohler on Tuesday and at Howards Grove on Thursday. We would like to thank all of our fans for supporting us and hope to see them at the rest of the games this year.