By Rich Palzewic,
Correspondent
SUAMICO – Jacob Calawerts had his coming out party for the Bay Port Football team last night.
Adding to his touchdown from week one, Calawerts added three more rushing scores in the Pirates 62-6 Fox River Classic Conference victory over the Sheboygan South Redwings at Bay Port High School on August 24.
“It’s been a good start,” said Calawerts, who is coming off a knee injury his sophomore year and missed all of last season. “I’m really liking the enthusiasm we’ve come out with and getting our feet underneath us. We have to work out some mistakes we had in this game, but I have a great offensive line that made my job look easy.”
Calawerts, who had touchdown runs of 9, 6 and 1 yard, had 80 yards rushing on 11 attempts. Bay Port (2-0 overall, 2-0 FRCC) rushed for 284 as a team.
“We have a number of good tailbacks, ‘JC’ being one of them,” said Bay Port head coach Gary Westerman. “Our o-line did a nice job blocking for him and our other backs up front. I’m happy to see Jacob find some success early on here because he’s worked hard to come back.
Despite the lopsided score, the Pirates made their fair share of mistakes and have plenty to work on heading into week three when they host Manitowoc Lincoln (0-2) August 31, who was a 31-26 loser to Green Bay Preble.
“We were really physical up front – I was happy with that – but there were flags all over the place,” Westerman said, whose team had six penalties, a fumble and threw an interception. “Some of it was undisciplined stuff that is uncharacteristic of us, so that was pretty disappointing. Obviously there’s a lot to work on, but it’s just attention to detail.”
Like last week’s 62-0 win over Sheboygan North, it didn’t take long for Bay Port to put this game out of reach. Calawerts scored two of his TD’s before half, while Isaiah Gash added another punt return TD – his second in as many weeks – of 28 yards. Gash also ran in another score from six yards out, before Ryan Smith added a TD on a 10-yard gallop before intermission.
Calawerts, Mars McGriff, Tristin Pagel and Dylan Grosskreutz all added scores in the second half.
“Isaiah’s natural position is tailback, but he’s been playing defensive back for us, too,” noted Westerman. “He has such great breakaway speed that once he gets out in the open, he’s tough to stop.”
The Pirates hadn’t given up positive yards on offense to the Redwings until late in the game, but Devin Kooistra-Floyd scampered 79 yards for South (0-2, 0-2) to break the shutout early in the fourth quarter.
Defensively, Bay Port gave up just 63 yards of total offense and has allowed just 94 yards total in its first two FRCC games.
Quarterback Isaac Krause completed 4-of-5 passes for 51 yards, while backup Jake Plummer completed his only pass for a TD to Pagel and added a 28-yard run. Cordell Tinch had three receptions for 40 yards to lead Bay Port.
The Pirates should finally get a little stiffer test next week against Manitowoc, something Westerman said his team is looking forward to.
“You obviously like the fact that we’ve gotten quite a few kids some playing time these first two weeks,” Westerman added. “All that being said, you want competitive games and you want to be in competitive situations. You want to be able to call plays and play offense and defense in tight games when every play matters. We will certainly be looking forward to that (next week).”