Homecoming week was in full swing at Homestead High School, and the boys football team brought even more energy to the school with their 49-0 win against the Port Washington Pirates on Friday, Sept. 25 at Homestead.

The Pirates received the ball to begin the game, but were forced to punt due to the Highlander defense coming on strong. When the Highlanders took over, the offense started by giving the ball to Matt Winters, senior running back, for consecutive plays, bringing Homestead close to the endzone. Michael Fehrenbach capped off an impressive drive with a running touchdown, putting Homestead up 7-0.

After an unsuccessful series for both the Pirates and Homestead, the Highlanders were back on the defensive side of the ball when Sean Driscoll, senior, intercepted Port Washington’s Tanner Orten and took it all the way for another Homestead touchdown. Drake Portman, offensive coordinator, decided to capitalize on the score and try for the two-point conversion. Quarterback Eric Zoeller, junior, handed the ball off to Winters, who ran the ball in, making the score 15-0 before the end of the first quarter.

Amidst all of the scoring and homecoming energy, the Highlanders suffered a loss due to injury. Serafino LaGalbo, senior outside linebacker, was taken out of the game, not to return, due to receiving a possible concussion from a big collision on the field. “It’s definitely not what I wanted to come out of this game. We don’t know the severity of it yet, but I just want to play,” LaGalbo said.

Before the first half was over, the Highlanders put up another 14 points. Winters ran the ball in from 30 yards out. Quickly after, Zoeller found Tyler Woldt, senior wide receiver, in the endzone on a 26-yard throw to put the Highlanders up 29-0 going into halftime.

“The offensive line did a really good job making holes for the running backs throughout the whole game. The win was an overall team victory,” Winters said.

After the homecoming court was announced and all of the other halftime activities were over, the Highlanders took the field again and did not show any sign of slowing down. Woldt was back to receive the kickoff and took the ball into the endzone from 65 yards out.

The Pirate’s offense could not get into a rhythm, and came up short every time they were driving the field. The defense could not do much either to stop the Highlander running backs who scored four touchdowns on Friday night. Before the third quarter came to a close, Patrick Minkin, a senior running back who was out with an injury from the previous game against Milwaukee Lutheran, took a handoff from Zoeller 53 yards into the endzone.

“It was good to be back after a week off; clearly, watching is not as fun as playing. Homecoming always brings a ton of energy. It’s the football team’s job to win the game during homecoming, and we took that to heart to get us hyped up,” Minkin said.

After a turnover on downs for the Highlanders, Port took over on their own 2-yard line, but were unable to come up with anything, giving the ball to Homestead again. With the backups in, the Highlanders were able to score again, this time from a 99-yard running touchdown from Matt Wade, senior running back, setting up the final score of 49-0.

The team was happy to get back into a rhythm of winning and plan to do the same thing next week against the Nicolet Knights. “Although we had a really good game on both sides of the ball, there are always things we can improve on, and we plan to do just that this coming week in practice,” Winters said.

Gallery • 5 Photos

Hannah O'Leary

Matt Winters, senior, gets the ball and runs it into the endzone from 30 yards out.