Season Preview: Greendale High School Football

GREENDALE, WI — Summer ended early for Greendale High School students this year, and players on the school's varsity football team prepared for their first game of the season in a late-afternoon cram session.

As the team rehearsed several of their best running and passing plays, the senior players helped newcomers fine-tune the formations, clarified how to block a key position, and the best way to run a pass route. It's by design, head coach Rob Stoltz said, as students learn through experience how to diagnose, correct and execute the plays that will carry the team through the season.

"You have to do things intentionally, otherwise you leave things to chance and they don't get done," Stoltz said to Patch. "Ultimately we tell our players all the time, 'it doesn't matter what we know as coaches', what matters is what they know and are able to execute and communicate among themselves."

The Panthers are coming off a 10-2 season last year in which they finished with a 7-1 record in the Woodland-West Conference. The team's hopes for a WIAA Division 3 state title were dashed in a Nov. 2 game when they fell 31-6 to New Berlin Eisenhower.

The team opened with a 20-7 home defeat to a resurgent Lake Geneva Badger squad, yet the team has high expectations for this year.

Brett Schumway is the team captain, and he was a first-team all-conference offensive lineman last year. He's playing tight end for Greendale this year. He's also a very capable defensive lineman having earned all-conference honors, Stoltz said.

"We have a good mix of decent size and decent speed, we have some high-level performers on both sides of the ball that we're going to lean on heavily," Stoltz said. "The trick is to find all those puzzle pieces that make up the composite look as to who we are going to be in 2019."

On defense, Evan Taft, Joey Gordon and Luke Lerant are set to anchor the defensive line. Dylan Schuster will fill the role of outside linebacker.

Will Brust is the next quarterback in waiting fot this program, which has had a successful run at the quarterback position for the last 20 years. Sam Sumerfeld and Mason Hanizeski hold down the running back position. Joe Tate, Miguel Smith, Tyler Fruncek and Colin Book will all be relied upon to make big contributions, Stoltz said.

Win Tickets

Greendale Patch partnered with Greendale High School to give away four free tickets to the Panthers Aug. 30 home game against New Berlin West.

Sign up for Patch’s daily email newsletters and alerts to be entered into drawing for free tickets. We announce the winner on Thursday, Aug. 29.

Official Patch Contest Rules & Regulations

Quotable

Mahaad Baig, Senior
CB, WR
What is your goal this year:

Hopefully to break the starting lineup, play, and help make a difference for the team.

Evan Tornow, Senior
WR, DE, OLB
How do you learn what to do when playing multiple positions:

You just do the best you can in practice and work as hard as you can in practice so that in games it's just automatic, and just with more experience, you learn a lot about the game and what to do in certain situations.

Zach Heard, Senior
OL, DL
What has it taken you to get to this point in your playing career:

I played all through youth football and through high school. There's a lot of work you need to put in not only during the season but in practice every day and in the offseason in the weight room. It's a lot of work. The goal is to win a state championship.

2019 Schedule

Aug. 22
7 p.m. Badger @ Greendale High School

Aug. 30
7 p.m. New Berlin West @ Greendale High School

Sep. 6
7 p.m. New Berlin Eisenhower @ New Berlin Eisenhower High School

Sep. 12
7 p.m. Pewaukee @ Pewaukee High School

Sep. 20
7 p.m. West Allis Central @ Greendale High School

Sep. 27
7 p.m. Pius XI @ Wisconsin Lutheran College Stadium

Oct. 4
7 p.m. Milwaukee Lutheran @ Milwaukee Lutheran High School

Oct. 11
7 p.m. Wisconsin Lutheran @ Greendale High School