THE UNDEFEATED 1970 ALMA RIVERMEN…GETTING SOME RESPECT, PART 2

Prior to the matchup against a 3-3-0 Winona Cotter, played in Winona, there was a twist in the A.P. polls.  In the recent poll Gale-Ettrick stayed #1 with Alma moving up to #4 in the “others”.  But there was a new wrinkle to the polls.   Kewaunee, which had been #10 in the Big Ten A.P. poll had notified the WIAA that their enrollment had dropped and they now had 592 students, eight under the minimum for the A.P. Big Ten poll so they were dropped to the Little Ten and as it turned out they were voted into the #10 spot the week of October 22, 1970.  The 32 points that they were awarded in the Little Ten poll would have kept them at #10 in the Big Ten poll.  The following week Kewaunee would move up in the Little Ten to the #7 spot. The poll posted on Wednesday.

Two days later on Friday night the Rivermen scored first against Cotter on a Jeff Bjork 16-yard interception return and with the 2-pt conversion Alma was up 8-0.  But a 55-yard strike from Cotters Steve Wiltgen to Mike Schultz showed that an opponent could score on the visitors.  The shutout run was over, but Alma wasn’t done.  The defense came up big holding Cotter to -31-yards on the ground and while the team allowed 150-yards passing they held their opponent to 119-total yards.  Cotter completed only nine of 30 passes but also tossed six interceptions with Bjork having three of those picks. Barry Ritscher was 6 of 13 for 94 yards and two scores, ran for 37 more, made nine unassisted tackles and scored the final touchdown on a 60-yard interception return.  With the win Alma moved up to the top spot on the A.P. "others" portion of the poll.

Now the final game was coming up against Elgin-Millville.  This would the fifth consecutive conference loss for the Watchmen as well as their fifth consecutive time that they had been shutout.  The 53-0 game was all Curt Gross.  The fullback scored five touchdowns, collected two 2-pt. conversion runs for 34 points and registered 31 unassisted tackles!  Those 34 points in the game moved him into the top spot in area scoring with a total of 118 points, jumping over Cochrane-Fountain City back Bill Baertsch who had 115 points in eight games.  Gross ended the season with a remarkable 127 tackles.  Barry Ritscher tossed two scores covering 60 and 33 yards against Elgin-Millville.

1971 Alma Yearbook…Note that there are 36 players on the squad…nearly every boy in the high school

1972 Alma Yearbook

It’s sort of strange that the final Little Ten poll showed Alma with an 8-0-0 record when they finished 9-0-0 BUT they got some respect as they jumped into the top 10 Little Ten A. P. poll.

Winona Daily News November 5, 1970

The local poll in the November 10, 1970 edition of the Winona Daily News had Alma tied for #1 with Gale-Ettrick.

Gale-Ettrick, Alma Eleva-Strum and Cochrane-Fountain City were the only Wisconsin schools on the list.  The rest are Minnesota schools including Spring Valley (MN) (Not to be confused with the Wisconsin village 60 miles north of Alma).

Honors came to six of the Rivermen by way of the All-Centennial Conference football first team, posted in the Daily News.  Curt Gross made it as a fullback after being named on the defense in 1969.  Barry Ritscher was named as the squad’s quarterback, Brian Ruff made it at the offensive guard spot, junior Bruce Mueller made the team at the center position.  On defense Tom Reiter and Steve Pearson were named as ends.  Jeff Youngbauer, Steve Brovold and Jim Lorenz were named to the honorable mention list.  Farther south of Winona the La Crosse Tribune named Ruff to the second team of their annual All-Coulee Region Team.

1971 Alma Yearbook

On the season the team gained 3,054 yards on offense for a 339.33 per game average and the defense held opponents to 364 total yards, a 40.44 average.  Individual stats are hard to come by, but Curt Gross gained about 800-yards on the ground, scored 17 touchdowns with 8 2-pt conversions and 127 tackles.  Barry Ritscher was 66-34-698-7 and gained 324 yards on the ground.  Jeff Bjork corralled at least six interceptions with three coming in the Cotter game. Of the stars on the team only one, Barry Ritscher, went on to play college ball where he played defensive back for four seasons at UW-River Falls.

Many of the football players were part of a very successful basketball 1970-71 season as well as winning the 1971 Wisconsin State Summer Baseball Championship.  The football winning streak would expand to 16-games before losing in the fourth game of the 1971 season. 

Realignment came to both sides of the Mississippi in 1971 with the Centennial Conference expanding to 10-teams, all Minnesota schools.  The Wisconsin based Dairyland Conference would expand with Alma joining.  The Riverman started 1971 with two shutouts and allowed a safety in game three before they lost to “the other Alma…Alma Center Lincoln 22-20.  Iverson would stay on as head coach until 1980 when, because of two consecutive 1-8 seasons in 1978 and 1979 along with just not enough players to compete the school dropped the sport for the 1981 season along with baseball for two seasons.  Lynn Iverson spent about 19 years as the head football coach and 35 years as a teacher at Alma.  He passed away a few years ago.

Being the smallest school in the Dairyland they came back on August 28, 1981, under a new head coach, to win the season opener 22-20 in overtime to, guess who?  Alma Center. The program would have its ups and downs as Alma stood on its own at various times after co-oping with Gilmartin as they made the WIAA playoffs in 1989, 1990 and 1996 before going on their own and making the playoffs 2004-07.  They then began co-oping with Pepin in 2009, and the Pepin/Alma 2014 and 2015 teams were the state Division 7 runner-up those years.  The pairing of these two seems to be successful as they have made the playoffs 14 times. 

What Lynn Iverson started, current coach Mike Olson of Pepin is continuing the success.

I want to thank Curt Gross for giving me the heads up on the 1970 ALMA season and Amanda Burrow, Spanish Teacher/Library Assistant at Alma Area Schools who supplied me with yearbook research information. They both helped make this story possible.

THE UNDEFEATED 1970 ALMA RIVERMEN…GETTING SOME RESPECT, PART 1

When looking at season final A.P. or U.P.I. football rankings (1958-1975) you can look at the bottom of each list and if there isn’t a press recap you might miss some information.  Did that #9 team lose their last game and they ended 7-1-0 or 7-1-1?  If they dropped because of a game nine loss, where were they before in the week eight poll?  Did the team replace a squad that dropped down to the honorable mention list because of wacky pollsters voting?  There could be a number of reasons for a school eking their way into the top 10.  For those that did just make it onto the final ranking it is the cherry on top of the Sunde.

In the Small School or Little Ten polls it is often a matter of the voters just not knowing about another team.  How can they know about teams they don’t see or read about? The pollsters had to hear from others to help make their consideration.  For some teams it was like comedian Rodney Dangerfield use to say as he twisted his necktie, “I don’t get no respect, no respect at all”.   The 1970 Alma Rivermen team was just such a squad.  They didn’t just get the respect they deserved during the season.

Alma is located, tucked along the Mississippi River, about 26 miles north of Winona, MN. The school first began playing football in 1958, going 0-8-0.  They failed to win a game for two seasons but there wasn’t a lot of support from the small student body.  The sport was new to the students and it would take an innovative coach to get the program moving.  In 1962 Lynn Iverson, a recent graduate from Winona State University was that person but it wasn’t an instant success.  Playing an independent schedule, Iverson’s boys went 0-5-1 in 1962, scoring only 25 points and allowing 148.  1963 saw the Rivermen go 4-4-0, their best record ever.  Then came their entrance into the Centennial Conference, as the only Wisconsin school vs. six Minnesota schools.  Things got better as Alma posted 8-1-0 and 9-0-0 records in 1964 and 1965.  Iverson was getting the boys out to play.  They would go 6-3-0 in both 1966 and 1967 and then followed this success up with a 7-1-0 season in 1968 and 6-1-0 in 1969.

Despite the past success, most coaches in the Centennial Conference picked Wabasha, the largest school in the conference, to take the 1970 title.  In 1969 Wabasha went 8-0-0 but only beat Alma 8-0.  The Alma juniors and sophomores gained a lot of experience.  The Rivermen returned three 1969 first team All-Conference players who would repeat in 1970.  Curt Gross was a middle linebacker on the 1969 All-Area team who also played the fullback position.  Barry Ritscher earned All-Centennial as a cornerback/safety while starting as the team’s quarterback.  And Brian Ruff was named to the offensive guard spot as well as playing defensive guard. 

Most of the opponents were small towns, like Alma, that had about 450 people, so the school district drew students from the surrounding area.  Alma had only about 80 high school students.  Cochrane-Fountain City had around 170, Onalaska Luther had around 300, and Mazeppa, like Alma, had about 80.  Wabasha, a town of 2,371 people was the largest public school in the Centennial with around 300.  Goodhue just had a touch over 100 students while Randolph, the smallest city/school in the conference with nearly 70.  Winona Cotter, a private Catholic school numbered around 400 pupils and Elgin-Millville had about 95 students.  So, for the most part, the Alma opponents’ numbers were fairly equal in size.

Playing two larger Wisconsin schools as the season opened, Iverson and his charges showed that 1970 would be their season.

Note the offensive vs, defensive yardage stats, nearly a 300-yards per game difference!

The offense clicked as well as featuring a very tough defense.  With an opportunistic offense, feeding off the tough defense, which recovered numerous opponent turnovers, the Rivermen would roll.  Against Mazeppa four fumbles were recovered which led to Alma scores.  After their third win Alma moved into the #2 spot in the weekly Winona Daily News area top10 poll.

They rolled over a tougher than expected Faribault Deaf Hilltoppers, holding them to only two first downs but Alma’s three turnovers slowed them down, a bit.  Fullback Curt Gross scored two touchdowns and two 2-pt conversions to power the offense as well as having multiple tackles. Their fourth victory corresponded with  the A.P. starting their weekly prep football poll.  Besides the top-10 there were 31 “others” who received votes.  Alma received 8 votes and was listed as at the #15 spot.  Interestingly, Cochrane-Fountain City, a team that Alma had shutout 42-0 and with a 3-1-0 record was four spots ahead on the list.

Game five was a matchup against the previous 1968 and 1969 conference champion’s Wabasha.  Regular starting quarterback Barry Ritscher only played on conversion attempts due to an injury.  Junior Jeff Bjork, the quarterback backup turned in a superb performance tossing two, third quarter touchdowns to flanker Steve Brovold who hauled in scores of 84 and 70 yards.  Alma rolled up 367 yards and allowed only 39.  The next week the Rivermen moved into the area top spot, tying Gale-Ettrick who had been the top team for the first three weeks of the poll.  The G-E Red Hawks were riding a 22-game win streak and ranked #1 in the Wisconsin A.P. poll.

Against Goodhue, the #2 team in the conference, it was another whitewash, for Alma, 28-0.  The game was played at Alma in a very wet, messy, cranberry like bog.  Slowed to gaining only 262-yards the defense again shone held Goodhue to 37-yards.  Ritscher was back from a hip injury and on a fourth down and 12-yards to go he lofted a 26-yard pass to Brovold who made a great over the shoulder finger-tip catch for the opening score.  Six fumbles, only one lost, slowed the run game but the 135 yards passing made up the difference.  It was a solid win.

In the recent A.P. polls Gale-Ettrick had traded the top spot with Auburndale but now they were back in the #1 position.  #6 in the “others receiving votes” was Alma. 

They were now getting some respect. 

PART 2 COMING SOON

DAVID VS. GOLITH 1987…PART 2

THE GAME

The game would be noted for a great passing performance by the run orientated team, a major injury and his gutty replacement along with a controversial late call for the underdogs.

Marquette got the opening kickoff and turned in a seven-play drive with Jeff Jarecki taking the ball in from nine-yards out for the first score.  Kicker Andy Di Piazza converted the extra point and with 8:50 into the first quarter as Marquette led 7-0.  Prior to the game Coach Basham heard comments that his club would walk over the Macks.  And why not?  “David” (McDonell) had only 97 boys out of a total of 210 students.  “Goliath” (Marquette) had 1,021 students…all boys.  Basham had a deeper bench.  They were bigger.  They played, what many around the state thought was a tougher schedule. 

The Macks expected the Hilltoppers to be tough but just 16-seconds after giving up the opening touchdown, Ben Gardow hit Randy Baier with a 40-yard touchdown and Keith Stirling kicked the tying extra point.  Was Marquette panicking?  NO, but the run game was stopped by a fumble and McDonell began to march down the field.  Then, tragedy for the Macks occurred.  Driving for the go ahead score Gardow couldn’t find an open receiver, so he ran and made it to Marquette’s five. There two Marquette players laid him out.  He held onto the ball, but he was down.  He had severely bruised ribs and had to be helped off the field. He was sent to an Oshkosh hospital for further evaluation.

Chippewa Falls Herald-Telegram November 13, 1987

Upon his return to the game Gardow would, despite his best efforts to convince Coach Uchytil that he could play, would not return. It would turn out that the bruised ribs would later be diagnosed as his having a broken bone.  Back-up quarterback Mike Hayes was called on to take over for Gardow.  Hayes was a starting linebacker who never expected to play offense in the title game.  In fact, in 1986 as a junior, he missed the season with an injured vertebra.  Hayes had good reason not to expect to play quarterback. He had a broken finger on his passing hand and had trouble gripping the ball, but he gave it a try.  In the first quarter Gardow had thrown 14-6-1-100-1 before leaving the game.  On his first play in the backfield Hayes picked up two yards and then he hit Randy Baier for a three-yard touchdown.  Sterling converted and suddenly the Hilltoppers were down 14-7. 

Marquette had averaged about 210 yards a game rushing during the regular season along with 80 yards passing.  In the playoffs their opponents found ways to shup the run down.  Thanks to their great defense they made it to the finals.  McDonell had a generally good defense overall and their players came to prove that they belonged in Oshkosh.  The Macks shut down the Hilltopper run game and in the second quarter Jeff Jarecki shined tossing two touchdowns, one to Frank Kastelic for 19-yards with 1:33 left in the period.  Hayes then tossed an interception and with :09 left on the clock Jarecki passed 28-yards to Alex Kasun to take the lead, 20-14.  Di Piazza missed the extra-point, but Marquette was on top in a real dogfight of a game.

The second half a slugfest.  Defensive tackle Kevin Lancette played with reckless abandon.  Linebackers Mike Hayes (Playing both ways throughout the game) and Mike Crawford stuffed the Marquette run game.  Jarecki tried to get the run game going to no avail so he continued to pass when appropriate.  Neither team could mount a drive but in the fourth quarter Hayes tossed an interception and Todd Belardi (Brian’s brother) returned it 45-yards for a touchdown and Marquette led 26-14.  McDonell finally put together the only real drive, by either team in the half, after the interception.  It was a 12-play, 56-yard drive that was capped by Hayes running two-yards for the score.  The extra point was missed, and the lead was cut to 26-20 with 2:56 left in the game.  Uchytil wanted the ball back for one last try for a chance to win.

Marquette took the kickoff but after three plays they were forced to punt.  Hayes was back on the field and ready to lead his team to victory.  McDonell quickly began to drive but Marquette forced them into a fourth and one on the 46-yard line.  THEN, the controversy occurred.  Hard pressure on Hayes by a Hilltopper defender, had a hand on him but Hayes was able evade the tackle.  The path to a first down was clear as he then moved up field, but a whistle blew, and a referee declared that Hayes’ knee touched the ground and the ball went to Marquette.  Later, when viewing the film of the game, the tape showed that the knee was six-eight inches off the ground but from the referees angle it appeared to touch the playing field.

Marquette then ran the clock out, taking the title, winning 26-20. 

In the game, Marquette only gained 48-yards in 36-carries on the ground with four out of five lost fumbles.  However, Jarecki was 19-10-0-161-2 on the game as he received the WISAA Championship game MVP award.  He also was a defensive back (One of a few two-way Marquette players) and played well in the game making several tackles and breaking up passes. Jeff was recently inducted into the MIHS Athletic Hall of Fame.  He graduated in 1989 having played in six Hilltopper-Catholic Memorial Crusader football, basketball and baseball matchups.  He directed his football team to two state football titles as the school again won in 1988 (12-1 record) defeating La Crosse Aquinas 7-0.  He was one of three team captains his senior year despite missing the first four games with a broken collar bone.  In his 22-game career he passed 292-131-9-2031-23 (School records at the time). It was a stellar career.

Mike Hayes finished the game with stats of 39-16-2-122-1 and seven tackles, all with a broken finger.  He was the team’s leading rusher with 34-yards on 13 carries and one score.

Talking to the press Marquette Coach Dick Basham said: “We thought we could come here and run the ball and run the clock.   It turned out they had us on the run.”   McDonell’s end Randy Baier had eight receptions for 108-yards and two scores.  Basham adjusted his defense which started out with four rushers and seven pass defenders.  They went from man-to-man pass defense to a zone. With Baier ripping them apart in the first quarter Basham pulled one rusher and added another defensive back to bump the receiver to try and slow him down. 

After the game Coach Uchytil said, “If Ben had been in there the whole game, I really believe we would have scored three more touchdowns. But Mike (Hayes) did a great job."  Uchytil had nothing but praise for his defense, even though his team lost. I don’t think anyone here thought we could play defense like that,” he added.

Marquette’s team and individual final season stats for the most part are not available.  What is known are the passing stats for Jarecki who threw 155 passes with 62 completions, four interceptions, 1,126 yards and 12 touchdowns.  On the other hand, the Chippewa Falls Herald-Telegram had the most complete season stats for a team that I may have ever come across.  Despite being injured in the title game Ben Gardow posted passing totals of 503-265-25-3,507-34.  He also carried the ball 120 times for 112 yards and two scores.  His 623 plays and 265 completions placed him second in the then national records.  In 1989 he set new state seasonal records as he passed 515-298-22-3664-44.  His three-year career (He may have been the backup to Dave Huffcutt in 1986 he never threw a pass) saw him set career records of 1,348-712-48-9,047-87.

Rick Baier, Randy Baier and Mitch Steinmetz only played two years (1986-87) but put up staggering receiving numbers.  Rick had 1987 final stats of 106 receptions (A single season state record), 1,077 yards and seven touchdowns.  His career totals read 176-1,643-11.  Brother Randy hauled in 76 passes good for 1,066 yards and 13 touchdowns.  His career totals are listed as 172-2,515-27.  Rick’s career receptions rank him #12 on the state records list.   Randy is next at #13.  Being the #3 receiver for the team showed that Mitch Steinmetz was very productive with 1987 stats of 55-890-5 and career totals of 121-1,845-15.  I can’t find career totals of three senior players from any another Wisconsin team coming close to what these guys accomplished in a two-season career. Also, I shouldn’t leave out mentioning the #4 receiver, junior Todd Bowe who caught 41 passes for 601 yards and nine touchdowns.  

Finally, besides Ben Gardow throwing 503 passes, Mike Hayes tossed the ball 96 times on the season.  Todd Bresina threw the ball eight times and Todd Bowe passed four balls.  The teams 612 passing attempts are a state single season team record.

Tired of reading all the stats?  I understand that it is mind boggling.  But I felt that to not include the information I wouldn’t be putting the season and title game in the proper perspective the story deserved.

 The final word on the game comes from the Milwaukee Journal game report, again written by Bob Schwoch:

“Basham was full of praise for McDonell which proved itself worthy of being called the second-best private school team in the state.”

“There’s lots of ways to play the game” Basham said.  “They (McDonell) played the game to the hilt.  They could give any team in the state of Wisconsin all they could handle.”

This was truly a game, a championship game, to remember.