LA CROSSE — It was just what the Wausau East High School football team wouldn’t expect when Logan quarterback Tommy Check lined up under center for the first time on Friday.
The Rangers rushed for 259 yards while pummeling Ellsworth in Week 1, and the Lumberjacks had just missed a field goal to give the ball at their own 20-yard line at Swanson Field.
Instead of running the ball himself or handing off to teammate Jameson Degenhardt, he rolled to his right and looked down the field. Charlie Zellner was running down the sideline alone, and Check dropped the ball right into his hands for what became an 80-yard touchdown that started Logan on its way to a 37-0 victory.
“If we want to be a really good team, we have to be able to hit play-action and throw the ball a little bit,” Logan coach Casey Knoble said of the big play call. “Tommy is a great weapon, and we have some good weapons on the outside, too.
“We have to make (opponents) defend 11 people, and that’s what our goal is each week.”
This doesn’t push the Rangers into a pass-first team. Knoble builds his teams to run behind punishing offensive lines, and that will continue just like it did against East.
But Knoble is also smart enough to take advantage of a quarterback who is gaining confidence in his passing ability, and that was on full display as Logan improved its record to 2-0.
Check completed 5 of 7 passes for 148 yards on Friday, and two of them covered 131 of those yards and went for long touchdowns. He also made a very nice throw on another sideline rout, but it was dropped.
“I love throwing the football,” Check said. “Over the last two weeks, I’ve gotten a lot more confident in throwing it.
“I was struggling with the grip of the ball earlier this year, but I’ve figured that out, and it feels very natural. It feels awesome to throw on the run like that, and I feel like a much better quarterback right now.”
Check has completed 10 of 15 passes for 209 yards and four touchdowns in his first two games. Zellner has caught three of those touchdown passes, and senior Bubba Leaver had the other.
Leaver had the second big scoring catch on Friday.
That came on a short throw that Leaver caught at the Wausau East 40. He then broke a tackle, reached the left sideline and raced to the end zone.
It was a big play for Leaver, who missed last basketball season with a back injury and started easing himself back into athletics by running and couple of 200- and 400-meter dashes for the track and field team in the spring.
“What I was most proud of was him coming out of that break and breaking a tackle,” Knoble said. “He ran through that tackle like I know that he’s capable of (doing). It’s just growing and getting better, and for him to take off down the sideline, that was awesome.”
“… He ran a couple track meets here and there just to do something, but he hasn’t really played since we played (Waukesha) Catholic Memorial (last football postseason) and has done a ton of work to get his body back and re-establish his core and hip flexors, and that’s what keep him strong now.”
Leaver’s touchdown pushed Logan’s lead to 14-0 with 2 minutes, 30 seconds left in the first quarter and really put the pressure on the Lumberjacks (1-1), who faltered under it.
