Sports
Pointers win WIAC title, host first round of NCAA
The Pointer
jwitt447@uwsp.edu
The ninth-ranked Pointer football team heads into the first post season in seven years with high expectations and confidence on Saturday, Nov. 22 ,at Community Field against Wartburg College Iowa.
The University Wisconsin-Stevens Point captured its 14th Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title to propel them into the NCAA playoffs.
“These students have worked hard; it’s a tough conference and to win this conference for one you have to be good,” said Head Coach John Miech. “Also you have to have things go your way at games, during games, and we had a lot of things go our way because we worked hard and stayed positive and we are looking forward to the post-season and see how far we go.”
Coach Miech, who has a 129-70-2 overall record as head coach, is ranked fourth on the All-Time WIAC wins list. He also has accumulated more wins than anyone in school history as a football coach, with almost twice as many victories as any other football coach in the history of the school.
“To go 9-1 in this league is a great accomplishment, and how we did it was great. Four of our wins were coming from behind in the last three minutes of the game,” said Miech. “Now that is behind us and we have a NCAA playoff berth and we are rewarded with a home game. Right now we are focusing on playing Wartburg.”
Wartburg College has an overall record of 8-2. They too won their conference and come into the playoffs riding a five-game winning streak.
Pointer quarterback Jared Beckwith transferred to UW-SP this semester and has found his niche very quickly. He feels that the team has a significant amount of potential going into the post-season.
“It’s outstanding to come here my first year and [win conference]. It shows a lot about the coaching staff and the players,” said Beckwith, junior at UW-SP.
The elementary education major believes that the team has gotten to the point it has because they were not plagued by injuries while the coaches took special care to make sure the playbook was understood and well-executed.
“You have to take it game by game. Every team is hard, that’s why they’re in the playoffs. There’s only 32 teams left and every team is obviously going to be competitive; that’s why they’re here,” said Beckwith. “I think we’ll be alright as long as we stick to our game-plan like we have all year.”
Offensive lineman Jay Schiedermayer believes that the team has been good for the past few years.
“The teams we’ve had in years past were really good too, but the breaks probably didn’t go our way like they did this year; some people would say we have a horseshoe up our butt,” said Schiedermayer. “We’ve been really well prepared for every game this year; the breaks just went our way this year.”
The team came into the season expecting to do well, assuming they would have a playoff berth even though the team was predicted to finish fourth in their conference.
“We have a really good team, and I like our chances. Each week is going to be a tough game because every team is good, but we just got to win this game,” said Schiedermayer. “If you go by what the experts say, we were supposed to take fourth so we did exceptional. This is what we expected out of our group the whole time.”
Coach Miech said that the team has some injuries, but not a considerable amount to accumulate a hole in the team, which he believes led to their conference-winning season.
