Rough weekend for football, but other sports thrive in area

Aquinas CC finishes 2nd at state, Blugolds volleyball headed to tourney

While it was a tough weekend for football in the area – except for Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau High School – it wasn’t for other sports.

The WIAA state cross country meet saw Onalaska Luther’s David Vannucchi win the Division 3 boys title – nearly seven seconds faster than second place – while Aquinas finished the boys state runners-up as a team.

The Blugolds were led by Jeremiah DeGroot and Ryan Scheidt, who finished 17th and 18th, respectively.

In Division 2, Dana Feyen won the girls title for G-E-T, while Sam Pinkowski finished fourth overall in the Division 1 boys race for La Crosse Central.

In volleyball, Aquinas punched its ticket to the WIAA state tournament for the first time in school history after its five-set win over Grantsburg on Saturday.

The third-ranked Blugolds are 31-4 but have a tough draw to open state. At 1 p.m. Friday at the Resch Center in Green Bay, Wis., they play top-ranked Howards Grove, which is 40-4.

In college, Viterbo’s volleyball team got its 31st and 32nd consecutive wins and clinched the NSAA conference title outright. The V-Hawks are 34-2, 14-0 with two games remaining in the regular season.

Not to be outdone, UW-La Crosse’s volleyball team clinched the WIAC title for the second year in a row. Both UW-Oshkosh and the Eagles finished 5-2 in the WIAC. UW-L is 21-4 and ranked 10th in Division 3 heading into Thursday’s WIAC tournament opener.

It wasn’t all bad news for WIAA football in the area. Bangor (11-0) ranked fifth in the Small Division in the final regular-season poll, and Pepin-Alma (10-1) both won in Divisoin 7. Those two teams met in the state championship last season with Bangor winning 20-14.

The irony now, however, is that the two teams meet Friday – in the third round – in Bangor.

G-E-T (10-1) will host St. Croix Central (8-3).

Multiple teams in Minnesota are playing for a bid to the state tournament – the final eight teams in each class.

Below is the area’s football playoff schedule.

FOOTBALL

WIAA PLAYOFFS

Friday’s games, 7 p.m.

Division 4

St. Croix Central (8-3) at Gale-Ettrick-Trempealeau (10-1)

Division 7

Pepin-Alma (10-1) at Bangor (11-0)

MINNESOTA PLAYOFFS

SECTION CHAMPIONSHIPS

Friday’s games

Class 9-man

at Rochester Community and Technical College

Spring Grove (9-1) vs. Grand Meadow (10-0), 5 p.m.

CLASS 2A

Caledonia (10-0) vs. Zumbrota-Mazeppa (8-2), 8 p.m.

CLASS 3A

at Rochester Mayo H.S.

Winona (8-1) vs. Kasson-Mantorville (8-2), 7 p.m.

Saturday’s game

CLASS 1A

at Rochester Community and Technical College

Rushford-Peterson (9-1) vs. Fillmore Central (9-1), 5 p.m.