New faces, same expectations for Wildcat football team
Jackson Shramek of Blair-Taylor ran to the outside after receiving a pitch during a practice last week. (Times photograph by Andrew Dannehy)
Tavian Shramek is poised to take over as Blair-Taylor’s starting quarterback this year, replacing Ethan Kniseley who is changing positions. (Times photograph by Andrew Dannehy)
While the program graduated a large senior class, the expectation is that the Blair-Taylor football team will have another successful season.
The team has made the playoffs every year under coach Andy Nehring, who took over in 2018 after the team was winless in 2017. B-T has won the Dairyland Conference twice in five years and has the longest active playoff streak in the conference.
The key? Working hard and playing as a team.
“We have good kids here at B-T,” Nehring said. “They work hard and work together. We’ll be successful because we play team football.”
The team will have 10 seniors this year, several saw action last year as the Wildcats went 6-1 in DC play and 6-4 overall before losing in Level One of the playoffs to River Ridge.
Among the seniors is first-team All-DC running back Jackson Shramek. A state champion in wrestling and all-conference baseball player, Shramek was second in the DC in rushing yardage last year with 1,284 yards. He averaged 7.3 yards per carry and added 15 rushing touchdowns.
He’ll have some new players blocking for him as the team graduated first-team all-conference lineman Bryan Rogstad and second-team selection Seth Jahr. However, the team has senior linemen Alex Taylor, Austin Kokke, Mac Christenson, Jacob Trushka and Matthew Nehring returning.
Coach Nehring said he’s excited to have so many new faces, noting they only have two starters returning on each side of the ball.
The other returning offensive starter also earned all-conference honors as Ethan Kniseley emerged as one of the top quarterbacks in the conference as a sophomore. He passed for 1,211 yards and 15 touchdowns and added 375 yards and six touchdowns on the ground as a dual threat. However, the junior will be changing positions this year.
The team graduated nearly all of its pass-catchers from last year as the only returning players who caught passes were Shramek (4) and sophomore CJ Dummer (3). With that, Kniseley will move into a position where he’ll be catching and running with the ball more, not distributing. Last week Tavian Shramek — who battled with Knisely for the starting quarterback job in 2022 — was taking snaps at quarterback. Shramek, a junior, got some game action last year, passing 15 times with one touchdown.
The team could use seniors Michael Waldera, Ben Lien or DaVonne Turner more this year. Turner was among the fastest runners in the conference during the track season last spring. Nehring said offseason work could help their inexperience both at receiver and along the line.
“Our attendance at passing league and the weight room was very good this summer,” Nehring said, adding the team worked hard in the offseason.
While the Wildcats have just seven juniors, they could look to a large sophomore class to make major contributions. The team has 15 sophomores with several getting varsity experience in football or other sports last season.
B-T’s regular season begins with two nonconference games against 2022 playoff teams as they’ll play at Onalaska Luther on Aug. 18 and at home against Elmwood/Plum City the following week.
