After a season burdened by shortcomings, injuries and unexpected losses, the UW-Platteville football team took their 2-7, 1-5 record on the road to face their toughest opponent yet, No. 2-ranked UW-Whitewater. The Pioneers succumbed to the Warhawks on Nov. 10, ending their season with a 21-7 loss to UW-W.

“As a team, we played quite well,” Joe Burkeland, freshman quarterback, said. “We played with heart and left everything out on the field, and sometimes that’s all you can do.”

The Warhawks, who had already clinched their third straight WIAC championship, extended their WIAC winning streak to 21 games and improved their record to 9-1 overall and 7-0 in the WIAC with the victory over the Pioneers.

“It was tough to go out on a loss, but we knew we gave it everything we had, a few different plays, and we were right there in the game,” Nolan Krajco, senior inside linebacker, said.

UW-W’s high caliber offense, led by star running back Justin Beaver, did all of the scoring during the first three quarters of the game.

Beaver found the end zone on the ground for two touchdowns, the first on a 23-yard rush at 11:16 in the first quarter and the second coming on a 1-yard run in the third quarter.

Whitewater scored their second touchdown of the game off of a 24-yard pass from Danny Jones to Neil Mrkvicka with 20 seconds left in the first half.

With the end of the game vastly approaching, it appeared as though the Warhawk defense had successfully shut down the Pioneer offense until junior running back Mike Genslinger scored from 14 yards out with 49 seconds left in the game.

The Pioneer offense outgained the Warhawks 364 yards to 356; however, UW-P’s turnovers were costly as UW-W intercepted five Pioneer passes and recovered a fumble.

“The team’s weakness was turnovers, which seemed to be our weakness all year,” Nick Grosso, junior wide receiver, said. “It is hard to win games when you keep giving the ball back to the other team.”

Krajco was named the defensive player of the game for the Pioneers. He led the Pioneers with nine tackles, seven of which were solo stops. He also had a quarterback sack and recovered a fumble.

The Pioneer offense was led by Grosso who hauled in eight passes for 50 yards and Dan Schwartz who had seven catches for 95 yards.

Burkeland was named the offensive player of the game for the Pioneers after he completed 20 of 41 passes for 217 yards and rushed for 62 yards.

“At times the team performed really well, and at times, we did not,” junior outside linebacker Brandon Willger said. “It was nice to see the team stick together after losing. We just could not
quite get it all together is what it comes down to.”

The Pioneers graduate 23 seniors, including some key starters on both sides of the ball; however, the outlook for next year’s program is a positive one.

“We will be going from an older team to a very young team,” Willger said. “I think we only have 14 guys that will be seniors, and of those 14, I think 10 have seen a great amount of playing time.”

“We are losing a lot of key players with the seniors leaving, but I also feel that we have a good group of players returning,” Grosso said. “It will be hard to fill some of the spots that were occupied by seniors, but I feel like we have some young guys that will step up to the challenge and fill in great.”