This past school year started with a bang.

However, it ended with an unfortunate dud.

The Beacon looks back at each month and reviews the highlights (and lowlights thanks to a pandemic).

ROBBY MICHAEL (left) had one of the best football games the state has seen in some time. – Photo by Jenni Pickel

AUGUST

Magical Michael

It’s been 100 years since the last high school football player set the state record with nine touchdowns in a game. Someone also had that many in 1916 and 1903.

On Aug. 30, sophomore Robby Michael scored eight times to lead Kohler/Lutheran/Christian to a 50-28 win over Manitowoc Lutheran.

Michael accounted for 48 of his team’s 50 points, and only 10 players in Wisconsin have had more in a game.

The Lutheran student set program records for most touchdowns and points, and was also voted the wissports.net football player of the week.

“I was like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’” Michael said. “I had the best game of my life.”

KLC was 0-9 the previsou season and had a total of only 41 points.

More early magic

South’s football team beat Green Bay Notre Dame, 14-0, Aug. 29 for just the third time in program history.

The Redwings had lost the last nine games against the Tritons by allowing at least 40 points each time.

GBND defeated South by a combined score of 82-0 the previous two games and had not lost to the school since 2007.

SEPTEMBER

Nice way to start

The season was not even a month old for new South volleyball coach Abby Sigler when the Redwings rallied to defeat Pulaski, 18-25, 23-25, 25-22, 25-23, 15-11, to snap their 19-game losing streak in the Fox River Classic Conference.

“It was amazing,” she said. “We were down two sets and just never gave up.

“We worked our butts off, put in the heart, never gave up and that’s why we won and finally broke the streak.”

OCTOBER

Rivalry continues

In a span of four days, two long losing streaks in the North-South rivalry came to an end.

It started Oct. 4, when North’s football team beat South, 13-6, to halt its nine-game losing skid to the Redwings. The Golden Raiders also snapped their 25-game losing streak.

On Oct. 8, South’s soccer team defeated North, 4-0, to end a losing streak that is at least 11 games in a row against the Golden Raiders. During those 11 contests, the Redwings managed a total of only eight goals – and three of them came in one game.

Golfers compete at state

Despite not having any seniors, the Sheboygan co-op girls golf team qualified for its first trip to state since 2011.

North/South finished in 11th place, as four of its five girls were sick.

Junior Zjeneexa Vang led Sheboygan by tying for 32nd place with a 174.

Another award for North

Golden Raiders’ junior volleyball player Lizzy Binder was tabbed co-player of the year in the FRCC, one season after former teammate Dru Kuck received the honor.

Binder already is the school’s all-time leader in kills after surpassing the overall mark of 1,000 this season.

SOUTH’S BASKETBALL TEAM is all smiles after starting 3-0. – Photo by Chris Horen

NOVEMBER

What a start

The Sheboygan co-op hockey team won its first six games of the season for the first time in program history, according to first-year coach Bill Sunagel.

In basketball, South’s girls started 3-0 for the first time in 12 years and the last time the Redwing boys were 2-0 was in 2008-09.

JANUARY

Rare milestone

Lutheran’s Jacob Ognacevic needed 52 points to reach 2,000, so he went out and scored that many in a victory over Ozaukee to become the 38th player in Wisconsin to obtain the milestone.

It came one week after the Valparaiso recruit became the first Crusader with a total of 1,000 rebounds in a win over Kohler.

WILL HAYON

FEBRUARY

Record breaker

Will Hayon would have loved to repeat as a state champion, but the North swimmer was not complaining about the consolation prize at the Division 1 State Championship.

The sophomore’s third-place time in the 50-yard freestyle was 20.69 seconds to break his school record he set last year, and then he finished third in the 100 free in 46.20 to lower another school mark of his.

Record breaker II

Some two hours after kidding around about scoring the most points ever in a South girls basketball game, junior Halle Boldt did it.

The point guard finished with 36 points to break the previous school record of 30 in a win over visiting Manitowoc Lutheran.

The third-year varsity player had never scored more than 19 in a game.

JACOB OGNACEVIC (No. 23) and his teammates after scoring his 2,000th point. – Submitted photo

MARCH

Virus hits

Reigning state champion Lutheran got to enjoy its boys basketball sectional semifinal victory for about 2½ hours.

Then the news came: the WIAA cancelled the rest of the season because of the Coronavirus.

Just like that, Lutheran’s plans of becoming the first Division 5 team to win back-to-back championships were over.

Honors aplenty

Ognacevic made first team and sophomore teammate Casey Verhagen earned honorable mention in the Associated Press’ all-state basketball squad.

Ognacevic, also selected the Big East Conference player of the year for the second straight season, led Wisconsin in scoring with an average of 39.4 points per game and ranked second in rebounding with 16.1 per contest this year.

He also became the fourth boy in the state to have a 1,000-point season and passed Sam Dekker as the school’s all-time leading scorer.

South senior Josh Govek was named to the Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association’s Division 1 all-state honorable mention team.

APRIL

No sports this spring

The WIAA Board of Control voted to cancel the spring season because of COVID-19. On April 16, the state’s Safer-at-Home order was extended until May 26 with all public and private K-12 schools closed for the remainder of the school year, which also prohibits all school extracurricular and athletic activities, according to the WIAA.