Seniors lead Dominican to breakthrough season
Whitefish Bay – So what does it feel like to make history? What is the sense when you reach a long sought-after goal?
Daniel Walton craved the moment so much that he remembers feeling he could almost taste the victory. Jake Bennett was brought to tears, tears of joy. For Eric Dlugopolski, there was happiness and satisfaction but also some uneasiness until Dominican’s victory over Greendale Martin Luther was in the books last Thursday.
“They were only down by six,” he said, “so if anything happened they could score and kick the extra point and the game would be over and they would win.”
And just like that the goal would have fallen just out of reach.
Since Walton, Bennett and Dlugoposki stepped into the program three years ago, their mission has been to reach the playoffs. That accomplishment is virtually a lock for many football programs in the area. Not Dominican. The Knights played their last playoff game as a member of the Wisconsin Independent Schools Athletic Association before the new millennium and the string of 15 straight losing seasons they started the year with was one of the area’s longest.
Note the past tense.
The WIAA football playoffs start Friday and Dominican (5-4, 4-3 Metro Classic) is in the field for the first time thanks to a new coach who has brought a new attitude and seven seniors who stuck with the program through tough times. They play at Columbus in a Division 5 game.
WIAA football playoff pairings
The story should have a familiar ring to high school coaches. They understand that a senior class that “gets it” can lead a team to special things, especially in a sport like football where physical maturity is bonus.
“My primary take from working with these guys this year is that they actually committed to the challenge I presented in front of them of laying the foundation of what we want Dominican football to be,” first-year coach Quincy LaGrant said. “I told them it would lie with them.”
Consider Dominican’s seniors a version of The Magnificent Seven. In addition to Bennett, a do-all player who lines up at a variety of positions, Dlugopolski, a running back-defensive back and Walton, a running back and linebacker, Dominican’s senior class includes receiver Corey Guy, lineman/linebacker Jon McCray-Jones and linemen Will Jelacic and Patrick Sherlock. All of them have key roles.
The class started Dominican’s resurgence. Their freshman season immediately followed 2012 when the school cancelled its varsity season and played only a JV slate.
What followed were solid seasons, all things considered. The group won eight games the next three years under coach Chris Bennin and avoided the cellar of the Metro Classic. The team was poised for good things in 2016 when LaGrant took over in January.
LaGrant, a former Milwaukee King standout who spent a decade coaching defensive backs at UW-Oshkosh, approached the job with confidence from Day 1.
“He said we’re going to win games,” Walton said. “Most coaches wouldn’t say that. Most coaches would say we’re going to try to turn this around. His mind wasn’t just on trying to maintain and not get blown out. It wasn’t trying to win some games. It was go to the playoffs and try to make a run in the playoffs.”
Though Dominican is best known for the championship pedigree of its basketball program, the rest of its athletic programs are average at best. That doesn’t mean the Knights' football players are strangers to winning big, though. Bennett, his younger brother Bo, Guy and Jelecic also play basketball.
Jake Bennett, you might remember, erupted for 7 three-pointers and a game-high 25 points in the Division 4 state final last year. The performance helped Dominican win a record fifth straight state title, but that moment didn’t top how he felt walking off the field last Thursday.
“For me this is the most special thing I’ve done in high school sports,” he said.
The odds are against Dominican getting a state championship ring in football – Columbus is undefeated and fourth in The Associated Press Medium Division state poll - but there is something to be said about being on the ground floor of a turnaround. There is something special about not giving up during the tough times and there is something oh-so-satisfying about setting a lofty goal and reaching it.
You don’t get there without some quality leadership on the field and in that regard Dominican is seven seniors strong.
“We’ll have a pep rally going in the first game and they were talking to me about sitting on so many of the basketball-related pep rallies and getting ready to go to state and that sort of thing and never, ever having the opportunity to have that experience with their sport,” LaGrant said. “They wanted that so bad. I think this week is going to be great to prepare for postseason play and to have the school celebrate and recognize their accomplishments.”