HOLMEN — While Holmen High School Ryland Eickhoff was excited to hear the play call as the final minute approached, Jack Barth was a little nervous.
In fact, it didn’t really register fully until he heard the first ‘Hut!’ from quarterback Colin Williams.
The Vikings needed a touchdown and were 72 yards away from the end zone for a second-and-2 snap as they trailed Onalaska by two points in an MVC football clash at Empire Stadium.
Now focused, Barth took a pitch from Williams and rolled to his right before abruptly unleashing a pass down the field to Eickhoff, who ran in double coverage.
Barth wasn’t sure if he had enough on the throw, but he did. It sailed just over the fingers of Onalaska senior Tanner Siebert and into the hands of Eickhoff around the 50-yard line.
And when Eickhoff caught it, neither Siebert nor Brendan Chenault had a chance to catch the standout sprinter who was convinced to rejoin the football team this season.
Eickhoff’s 72-yard touchdown catch with 1:08 on the clock gave Holmen a 19-15 win that made it 3-0 overall and 1-0 in the conference.
“The wind might have carried it a little bit because it looked like the safety might get it,” Eickhoff said of Siebert’s play on the ball. “It fell right in my hands, though.”
The catch was the first of the season for Eickhoff, who is on the team after cutting a deal with senior defensive lineman Tristen Brennan last spring. Eickhoff said he’d play football again if Brennan threw for the track and field team.
Barth didn’t appear set when he threw the pass, but he said it felt as good as it could have on the release.
“I don’t really have any throwing background, so I just let it rip,” he said. “I was a little nervous because he had someone right in front of him, and I didn’t know if I got enough air under it.
“I saw the DB jump and miss it, I saw (Eickhoff) jump up and catch it, and I turned around and put my hands up.”
The Hilltoppers (2-1, 0-1) had a little time left after stopping Holmen’s two-point conversion and used a 37-yard pass from Ian Kowal to Siebert to get a drive going. Onalaska moved the ball across midfield and to the Holmen 36 before offensive pass interference was called near the end zone on a long incomplete pass down the right sideline as time expired.
The Vikings rushed for 689 yards in their first two games, but the Hilltoppers weren’t about to let a similar performance take place on Friday. Holmen was held without a first down until the final minute of the first half and had zero offensive yards when beginning that possession with 1:01 on the clock.
The Vikings finished with 138 rushing yards, and 89 of those came after halftime.
Onalaska took a 2-0 lead to halftime after Jackson Egan’s safety on a botched pitch from Williams to Barth on Holmen’s first possession, but the teams exchanged several turnovers, and the Hilltoppers were burned by penalties as they tried to extend the lead.
“Between penalties and our play in the red zone, we left two or three scores out there,” Onalaska coach Tom Yashinsky said. “That’s just really disappointing. That’s tough. You can’t leave points off the board.”
Holmen coach Travis Kowalski said his team wasn’t happy with its first-half play but said it was important that they could sit and talk about what happened fully aware that they trailed by just two points.
“We played the worst half of offensive football … wait the worst game of offensive football I’ve had here in a while,” he said. “We didn’t execute very well and made a lot of mistakes. Our defense kept us in this game.”
John Faherty gave the Vikings their first lead by returning the second-half kickoff 79 yards for a touchdown, but a muffed punt by Barth gave Onalaska a first down at the Holmen 20. Kowal completed a pass Jackson Egan to put Onalaska back out in front, and sophomore Adam Kuhn capped Onalaska’s next drive with a 2-yard touchdown run that made it 15-7 with 3:06 left in the third.
Kuhn and Carson Zinnecker became Onalaska’s primary threats out of the backfield when junior Kaeson Stettler left the game in the first quarter with a shoulder injury.
Senior AJ Alesch scored on a 9-yard run in the fourth quarter to get Holmen within 15-13.
