Hamilton Five shine as Whitewater notches monster win over Oshkosh

Drew Patterson darted left, avoided a number of tacklers and somehow kept his feet. When he found the end zone with 55 seconds left in the Oct. 8 clash with the University of Wisconsin Whitewater’s biggest rival, he had likely sealed the biggest regular-season win of the year.

The Hamilton High School graduate is one of several Chargers on the Whitewater roster, and all played a role in the team’s 17-14 win over UW-Oshkosh with an NCAA Division III record crowd of 17,535 on hand.

“We started off that last drive with eight minutes left, so we knew if we didn’t score here there, we might get another shot, or it might be our last chance,” said senior offensive lineman Tony Koepnick, another HHS graduate. “When we crossed the 50, 4 minutes left, I figured this was it. I knew we got down in the count down-and-distance-wise, but we still had confidence in ourselves.”

Patterson's 16-yard run came on a 3rd and 14 play.

Koepnick, standing at 6-3 and 310 pounds, started all 14 games in 2015 and entered the year as a preseason All-American, as selected by D3Football.com. Last year's Whitewater team reached the national semifinal, but this year’s team has designs of getting back to the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl, the national title game in which Whitewater has made nine appearances in the last 11 years, with six titles. There are five Hamilton graduates seeing the field who could have a lot to do with it.

“There’s no question about it, Whitewater has a reputation for winning national championships,” said former senior linebacker Kyle Schiedemeyer, who transferred to UWW from the University of Dubuque. “Something that we focus on as a team to take the pressure off is that we really are about taking it week by week. Let the other team make it a big game but let’s stay worried about us.”

Schiedemeyer nearly had the punctuation mark to the game when a game-clinching interception was knocked out of his hands on the final drive against Oshkosh. Whitewater ultimately kept Oshkosh from threatening to re-take the lead as time expired.

“They ran that play the drive before, and I knew that they had no timeouts and they had to get to the sideline,” Schiedemeyer said. “So when I saw the running back flare out to the left, it was definitely almost a surreal moment when I saw the ball thrown. The guy made a great play on the ball and knocked it back out of my hands. It definitely would have been quite the exclamation point for sealing that victory.”

Tony Gumina, still another Hamilton product, had only two catches in the game, but both came on the final drive. The junior tight end caught passes of 15 yards and 12 yards, setting up the big run from Patterson to cap it off.

“I had missed a couple reads and I kept telling my coach we have to keep trying it, because I was doing really well on my routes, breaking off linebackers and safeties and just getting open,” Gumina said.

“It's actually kind of funny; all of us have obviously grown up together and played football for our entire lives together,” he added. “The joke is that everyone in Sussex goes to Whitewater, but it’s a cool tradition, and we take pride in it. Drew and I have been best friends since we were 4 or 5. I’ve played football with him my entire life, and it’s great that this is a football experience I can share with him.”

Patterson, who rushed for 1,673 yards as a senior at Hamilton, initially attended Division 1 FCS school Western Illinois before transferring to Whitewater for this season. With 609 yards rushing and eight touchdowns in five games this year for undefeated and No. 2-ranked Whitewater, Patterson is the leader in both departments.

Drew’s older brother, Nick, also a standout at Hamilton, was among Whitewater's rushing leaders each of the past four seasons. Their father, Tim, was inducted into the Whitewater Athletics Hall of Fame in 2001 for his career in baseball and football, and their old football coach at HHS, John Damato, was inducted in 2014 after his decorated career as a running back.

“I wouldn’t say he’s pushing people toward the program at all,” Schiedemeyer said of Damato. “But what’s nice is going to a high school where he replicated the intensity of the workouts, the intensity of the preparation. He knows what it takes as a high-school coach, especially coming through a successful college program.”

The newest Hamilton graduate on the roster, sophomore defensive back Brett Buehler, sees the field on special teams.

“It’s nice to have familiar faces, guys you know and can talk to outside of football,” Koepnick said. “Being a senior now, I’m still pretty close to those Sussex guys but there are other guys I’m pretty close with, too.”

The rivalry with Oshkosh, ranked No. 5 coming into the battle, has had some great recent installments. Last year, Oshkosh won in the regular season, 10-7, but Whitewater won the playoff rematch, 31-29. Whitewater downed the Titans in 2014 and 2013, but in 2012, it was Oshkosh that ended Whitewater’s 27-game winning streak against WIAC teams, 28-13.

The crowd that day was 12,318, then a WIAC record. Saturday’s crowd far surpassed it.

“Think about that,” Schiedemeyer said. “The largest crowd that you can play in front of at that level was at Whitewater.”

Added Gumina, “We were prepared to have the loud noise and the crowd constantly cheering. Normally, we're a no-huddle team, but at some points we had to huddle up and slow down to make sure we could communicate effectively and efficiently.”

The Hamilton Five now have bigger fish to fry, with five more games on the schedule before the playoffs begin.

“The season's gone well,” Koepnick said. “We have some things to clean up on offense; there’s always stuff you can work on, but we’re doing pretty good so far. We’re going to finish the conference season strong and should be ready to go for the playoffs.”