By Paul Sloth
Journal Times | Posted: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 12:00 am
BURLINGTON - The boys of Burlington Catholic Central High School's football team want the gold. It's been a long time since a Catholic Central football team brought a gold football back to Burlington.
Their classmates gave them a rousing send-off Wednesday morning during a second-hour pep rally before the team boarded bus no. 58 to the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where the team practiced on turf.
Their next stop was Madison and a date with destiny. There the undefeated Hilltoppers face the undefeated Wolves of Hilbert High School, of Hilbert near lake Winnebago, at 10 a.m. in the WIAA Division 7 title match.
Many of the players on the school bus headed for Camp Randall Stadium for Thursday's game weren't even born when the Hilltoppers last won a state championship in 1991.
The Hilltoppers are underdogs, of sorts, as they head into Thursday's game. Hilbert has beaten Catholic Central convincingly the last two times they met in playoff action in 2001 and 2005, Hilltoppers Head Coach Tom Aldrich said.
"I don't know if it helps or not (being underdogs). You approach it the same way. You go in there trying to find ways to win," said Aldrich, who is in his 17th year coaching at Catholic Central. "Our big thing is … that was then this is now. So let's just go play ball and see what happens."
The last time a Hilltopper football team played in a championship game was four years ago, when most of these players were in middle school. They got shellacked by Shell Lake, coach Aldrich said Wednesday before the pep rally at the school. The Lakers shut out the Hilltoppers 35-0.
The team brought home a silver football. This team has its eye on the gold. They've already spied a spot for it in the school trophy case.
Running back Max Vos, 18, filmed the game that year, when he was an eighth-grader. His brother, Sam, played on that Hilltopper team.
Vos' mother, Jane, said she hoped that this time around, this team would have an advantage in getting to Camp Randall Stadium the day before the game. In 2004, the team was noticeably tired since they had to get up at 4 a.m. to get on the bus headed for the game.
Senior Pat Kelly, 18, was an eighth-grader in 2004. Kelly, a team captain who plays left guard and defensive tackle, followed the Hilltopper team that year. Like the rest of his teammates, Kelly was excited for Thursday's games and happy that the football season had gone on as long as it has in Burlington.
"It really hasn't sunk in. I still find it difficult to believe we're undefeated," Kelly said.
It was a different story at Will Paulus' house, where the reality of playing in the state championship game settled in this week, Will's dad Jeff Paulus said before Wednesday's pep rally. Jeff Paulus was headed to Camp Randall Stadium with a group of parents.
"It's been a great ride. They love to do whatever it takes to win," Paulus said. "They're in it for the love of the game. It's been fun to watch."
For Aldrich, who has been through this before, he and his team really didn't do anything drastically different, they just played football.
"We knew we had a group of special athletes and we just tried to get them to believe in each other and to work hard," Aldrich said. "The big thing was to believe in each other and believe in the systems we were doing and I think that our senior leadership helped push that through and it's been a successful season."
Where to watch and listen
The WIAA Division 7 championship high school football game between the Burlington Catholic Central Hilltoppers and the Hilbert Wolves will be broadcast live starting at 10 a.m. Thursday on both television and radio.
The game can be seen on Fox Sports Net Wisconsin, Channel 31 for Time Warner Cable subscribers in Burlington and Racine. It can also be heard on WRJN 1400 AM.