Wisconsin Sports: Weekend in Review

This past weekend was an excellent one for all true Wisconsin sport fans. The Brewers swept their weekend series against the Diamondbacks, the Badger football team won in a double overtime contest against Fresno State, and the Packers pulled out a fourth quarter victory against the Bears.

BREWERS

The Crew played excellent this weekend, beating the Diamonbacks three times by scores of 6-3 on Friday, 9-2 on Saturday, and 5-3 on Sunday. The weekend saw lots of production from the middle of the batting order, as Casey McGehee continues to dominate in road games. In Saturday's win McGehee hit two homers and drove in six RBI's, a career day for the third baseman. Not only was this his first multi-home run game, the six RBI's he had tied a Brewer record for single-game RBI's by a rookie. McGehee is now getting mentioned with Rookie of the Year candidates.

McGehee didn't have the only record performance of the weekend, however. On Sunday night Prince Fielder hit a solo home-run which upped his season RBI total to 126, tying the Brewers' franchise record previously owned by Cecil Cooper. After the game Fielder said, "I've never thought about [the record] until now. It's really an honor to be mentioned with a guy like Cecil. He was a great first baseman, so it really is something special. This organization has had a lot of great players, so it's really a big deal. It's pretty cool." Fielder looks to take sole possession of the record tonight when the Crew begins a series with the rival Cubs.


BADGERS

The Badgers won a double overtime thriller in the heat Saturday afternoon against the Fresno State Bulldogs. Scott Tolzein quarterbacked the Beadgers to a comeback win with the help of a grind-em-out style running attack. After going down 14 zip, Zach Brown scored on an 11 yard run. Later, down 21-7, David Gilreath ran in a touchdown from 8 yards out. Philip Welch added a 57 yard field goal just before the end of the first half to pull the Badgers within 4 points. The third and majority of the fourth quarter went scoreless until John Clay broke a 72 yard touchdown run, putting the Badgers up 24-21 with about 6 minutes remaining. The Bulldogs were able to score a field goal before the game ended to send it into overtime.

Wisconsin began on offense in overtime and Scott Tolzein quickly found Nick Toon in the endzone for a 6 yard touchdown pass. Fresno added a touchdown of their own to even the score. The Badgers started on defense in the second overtime. On the first play the Bulldogs looked to the endzone, but Chris Maragos, a senior captain, came up with a huge interception. On the Badgers' ensuing possession Clay carried the ball five times to set up a 22 yard game-winning field goal for Philip Welch. The Badgers take on Wofford this Saturday at Camp Randall.

PACKERS

Aaron Rodgers finally showed all Packer fans what we have been waiting to see: a comeback win in the fourth quarter. In eight of the Packers' ten losses last season they were ahead or behind by less than one score in the fourth quarter. In those eight losses, the game was decided in the final two minutes. Sunday night was a different story.


The game started out much as everyone expected: two defensive oriented teams exchanging blows. The Packers appeared to have control over much of the game, especially after an injury to All-Pro middle linebacker Brian Urlacher (who later announced his wrist injury is a season ender). Unlike last year's team, penalties were not drive killers on Sunday. Allen Barbre was. The right guard was consistently beaten by Chicago defensive ends, and Rodgers saw all kinds of pressure throughout the night.

The Packer defense stepped up, however, and intercepted Jay Cutler three times in the first half, including a Tramon Williams interception that was returned to the 1 yard line, setting up a Ryan Grant touchdown run. The Packers went into the half up 10-2. The Bears took the lead in the third quarter, getting a touchdown and a field goal to go up 12-10. Both teams traded field goals to make the score 15-13 Chicago with just over two minutes remaining.

The Packers drove the ball to midfield where they faced a 3rd and 1 with under two minutes to play. Rodgers executed a perfect play-action fake and Greg Jennings burned Nathan Vasher for a 50 yard bomb. Chicago had the ball for one last drive with a minute left to play, but Al Harris sealed the game with an interception.

Many are confused about the attempted fake punt Chicago tried early in the fourth quarter. Apparently the center thought the Pack had 12 men on the field and tried to catch them on it. It ended up in disaster as the Packers were able to score a then go-ahead field goal.

We can only expect the Packers to improve from here. It will be exciting to see what Aaron Rodgers can do once he is graced with a little time in the pocket.

The Packers play the Cincinatti Bengals this Sunday at Lambeau Field.