By Greg Bates
Correspondent
DE PERE – With the season on the line, Chad Michalkiewicz had an easy decision to make: go for the win.
Down one point in overtime to Hartford Union in a Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association Division 2 Level 2 playoff game, the De Pere football coach opted to go for a 2-point conversion rather than kick the extra point.
Michalkiewicz’s call was to hand the ball off to bruising running back Michael Alexander.
The junior pushed forward and appeared to land in the end zone as the ball squirted out and a Hartford defender scooped it up.
As De Pere quarterback Gabe Herman and a couple of his linemen put their hands up to signal Alexander had scored, the officials gathered for discussion.
No touchdown.
And just like that, De Pere’s magical season was over.
Its nine-game winning streak was snapped in heartbreak.
No. 5-seeded seeded Hartford pulled off the upset, taking down top-seeded De Pere 43-42 in overtime Friday night.
“It’s exactly what I would expect when the season would end that we would go laying it all out there – that’s the character of this team,” Michalkiewicz said.
The De Pere coaches and players didn’t receive a clear explanation from the officials on what was called on the final play of the game.
“(The officials) scattered off pretty quick, but they said he fumbled into the end zone,” Michalkiewicz said. “He’s lying in the end zone, the ball didn’t come out until he hit the ground, so you can’t fumble into the end zone. As soon as the nose of the ball hits the plane – I realize we don’t have instant replay and things like that, but they’re standing on the goal line. To me, if it wasn’t down, the only call is that it’s a 2-point conversion unless he’s down short of the goal line and that’s not what the call was. I don’t know what the explanation was.”
Alexander was laying in the end zone with three of his blockers when he heard the officials make the call.
“I didn’t hear anything until after the other team picked up the ball because I thought I fumbled it, but then they said I was down short of the goal line,” a teary-eyed Alexander said. “I thought I got in, but it doesn’t matter because we lost. I feel bad for all the seniors because this sucks, man.”
De Pere (9-2) wouldn’t have had a chance to win the game had it been for some wild, late-game heroics.
It all started after the Redbirds tied the game at 29-29 with 5:37 remaining in the fourth quarter.
Hartford (8-3) got the ball to the De Pere 46 and faced a fourth-and-5 with 1:58 on the clock.
Quarterback Austin Kutz tried to draw the De Pere defenders offsides before snapping the ball.
Star running back A.J. Pepin snuck out of the backfield and caught a pass for 16 yards.
Three plays later, Quinten Hornada capped off an 11-play drive with a 16-yard touchdown run to put Hartford up 36-29 after the extra point with 39.5 seconds left in regulation.
De Pere took over at its 35, needing 65 yards to send the game into overtime with 33.2 seconds showing.
After two incomplete passes by Herman, he hit Sean Colwell for 12 yards to the 47.
An incomplete pass to Jack May had De Pere 53 yards from the end zone with 5.5 seconds left.
A pass from Herman to Grant Hohol fell incomplete with no time on the clock.
However, a late flag was tossed for pass interference as De Pere moved to Hartford’s 38.
With an untimed down, Herman put a lot of air under it, and Hohol went up for the ball and was shoved.
Another pass interference call, another 15 yards and another untimed down.
From the 23, Herman rolled out and hit Hohol at the 8, and as he was starting to get dragged down, he lateralled it to May.
The senior wasn’t going to be denied the end zone as he got in.
Jack Jorgensen – who nailed a 45-yard field goal to end the opening half – nailed the extra point to send the game into overtime at 36-36.
“That was a call from across the field on the play before where we got the penalty, I decided to put Jack into the boundary and have him stem to the middle, delay it,” Michalkiewicz said. “Grant did a great job; he’s getting hit and keeps the play alive, and Jack wasn’t going to be denied. He gets into the end zone with a heck of a play.”
De Pere won the coin toss and opted to play defense first.
The Redbirds’ defense, normally extremely difficult to score on, had allowed Hartford to score touchdowns on its previous five possessions.
“At that point, it’s 0-0, so we’re looking to stop them right there,” Alexander said. “We didn’t, and because of that, we lost the game and we’re going home.”
Facing a fourth-and-goal at the 1, Noah Deibert punched the ball into the end zone to put Hartford up 43-36.
De Pere got the ball from the 25-yard line and needed one play to score.
Herman hit the outside and he was gone – his third rushing touchdown of the game.
Down one, Michalkiewicz was going for the win.
“We were going to feed Michael, and it was there,” Michalkiewicz said. “He got in the end zone. I’ll leave it at that.”
Herman, a junior, finished 8-for-18 passing for 98 yards.
He ran for another 68 yards.
Seniors Colwell added 99 yards on the ground, and Caleb Rinard had 61 yards.
The loss marked the final game at De Pere for 28 seniors.
Rinard said the seniors want to leave a lasting legacy.
“We want to be role models for the guys stepping up next year,” he said. “We want the guys coming up next year to look at us and say, ‘That’s the expectation. What they did last year, that’s what we should do.’”
Alexander echoed his teammate’s words.
“This was probably the best year of football I’ve had in my life,” he said. “I like all these seniors, they’re great to me. I love those guys. I’ll miss them.”
Michalkiewicz said he knows once the initial sting wears off of the season-ending loss, the players will realize what they accomplished this year.
“These kids are winners through and through,” he said. “You go all the way back to COVID-19 and these seniors got shut down their sophomore year. They’re 16-2 with two conference championships. Unfortunately, in the playoffs, if you are on the wrong side of the scoreboard, your season comes to an abrupt end. Man, they’ve got nothing to hang their heads on.”