WITTENBERG – The Manawa Wolves varsity football team suffered a 12-40 defeat at the hand of the Wittenberg-Birnamwood Chargers on Friday, Sept. 24, as three Chargers rushed for over 100 yards each.
Wittenberg-Birnamwood led 14-0 at halftime and exploded for 20 points in the third quarter. They also added a touchdown in the fourth quarter.
Manawa lost two-way starter Jestin Heimbruch to an ankle injury on the fourth play of the game and didn’t get on the board until the fourth quarter. David Sell tossed a 23-yard pass to Kyler Heimbruch, and the two-point conversion failed. Sell later connected with Austin Mann for a 70-yard score, and the two-point conversion again failed.
Wittenberg-Birnamwood gained no passing yards, but rolled up 427 yards on 51 carries. Manawa had 79 rushing yards on 31 carries, and also gained 146 yards through the air.
“The upbeat part is we are only one game behind Shiocton,” said Coach Bob Sell. “From a team perspective, its actually very similar to what the Bible talks about in Romans 8. As a team, we’ve been getting killed. We’ve been accounted for as sheep for the slaughter, but in all things we have to become conquerors. To paraphrase, we’re playing like sheep right now, and as the coach, I’m the shepherd. I’ve got to find a way to get these sheep turned into wolves-because we are the Wolves.
“We need to try to find those players that want to be football players and not just play the game,” Sell continued. “We have 30-35 kids who want to play football, but we need to find some football players. The good thing we have is that there are four more weeks for us to figure it out and still get to keep playing the game.”