Amherst romps past Iola-Scandinavia

AMHERST -  Chandler Benn never had time to think about what was within reach of the Amherst football team Friday night. The junior halfback was too busy paying attention to his job in a Central Wisconsin Conference-8 showdown with Iola-Scandinavia.

When the final whistle sounded, Benn was finally able to reflect on what Amherst had just accomplished, with a huge helping hand from the first-year starter.

Benn finished with 104 yards rushing on 17 carries and found the end zone three times, and the Falcons clinched no worse than a share of their third consecutive CWC-8 championship by dismantling the Thunderbirds 42-14 in a battle on conference unbeatens.

"You're really dialed in when you're in (the game), once it's game time you're dialed in," Benn said. "We've grown as a team (from the beginning of the season) so much, it's unbelievable. We've gotten so much better in practice."

What on paper looked like a toss-up quickly turned into a surprisingly lopsided affair.

Iola-Scandinavia met with disaster on the second play from the line of scrimmage when quarterback Jayden Sivertson was picked off by Josh Cisewski. Six plays later Benn was powering into the end zone to put the Falcons up 7-0 just 2 minutes, 5 seconds into the contest.

It was all down hill from there for the T-Birds, who were unable to establish any sort of ground game against a physical and relentless Amherst run defense. I-S was limited to a minus-3 yards rushing on 22 attempts in the opening half.

Relegated to a one-dimensional attack, the passing game was unable to carry the load for the Thunderbirds. Coach Scott Erickson offered a stark assessment of what just happened as his team gathered in the north end zone after the game.

He was even less talkative to the media afterwards."I have no comment tonight," was the extent of the conversation with reporters.

The Thunderbirds had every reason to believe they had a chance to end Amherst's 22-game conference winning streak. Instead, the Falcons made win No. 23 in a row look just as easy as many of the previous 22.

Benn scored on runs of 3, 1 and 10 yards. When Benn wasn't inflicting damage behind a dominant offensive line, senior quarterback Brandon Piotrowski was having more than his fair share of success.

Piotrowski hooked up with Cisewski on a 19-yard touchdown pass and also added a 46-yard TD scamper in the second quarter to extend the Falcons lead to a convincing 28-0 at the break.

"We were clicking on all cylinders," Amherst coach Mark Lusic said. "The key part is we came in focused. Last week (against Pacelli) we weren't mentally there, so that was the emphasis. The guys did a nice job of executing."

The Falcons squashed any doubts about the outcome in the opening 2:10 of the second half.

Benn capped off a four-play 47-yard drive on the Falcons' opening possession of the second half with his third touchdown. The night went from bad to worse seconds later when the T-Birds fumbled on their first play of the ensuing possession and Max Villnow recovered for Amherst.

On the very next play Piotrowski connected with Josh Schude on a 23-yard scoring play. The two-point conversion put the Falcons on top 42-0 with 9:50 left in the third quarter.

Jonathan Bauer and Benjamin Cady hauled in consolation TD passes in the fourth quarter for Iola-Scandinavia. Sivertson connected with Bauer, while Alexander Sharp found Cady for the score.

However, it was far too little, too late, and Amherst was basking in yet another CWC-8 championship.

"This group of seniors were hungry still. They put in a lot of work in the offseason," said Lusic of a relatively new cast of players pushing the conference title run to three and counting. "Everybody contributed to this today, freshmen through seniors. It's a great job. Hard work pays off on nights like tonight."

Scott A. Williams can be reached at 715-345-2282, or by email at ssswilliam@stevenspoint.gannett.com. Find him on Twitter as @SPJScottWill