Rest easy Rockets, playoff berth is in the bag

By David Cotey

Over the last three decades, South Milwaukee football coach John Galewski has coached in dozens of big games.

Few have made him lose as much sleep as Thursday’s regular-season finale with St. Thomas More.

Facing a must-win situation with the school’s first postseason berth in 11 years on the line, the Rockets gave Galewski reason to rest easy by posting a 20-6 victory at St. Francis. The victory improved the Rockets to 5-4 overall, but more importantly, 4-4 in the Woodland Conference.

Teams with records of .500 or better in league play qualified for the playoffs, which begin statewide Tuesday. The Rockets have not played a postseason game since 1998, when this year’s seniors where in first grade.

“I didn’t sleep too good the last couple nights, in all honesty,” Galewski said. “These kinds of things are new for our kids as far as understanding what was in front of them. (Thursday) they were pretty loose and really fired up in the locker room.”

South Milwaukee senior running back Luke Maldonado had a 7-yard touchdown run and a two-point conversion in the first quarter that gave the Rockets an 8-0 lead. Junior quarterback Sam Oliden had two second-half TD runs, including a 53-yard scramble in the third quarter.

The win snapped a string of 10 straight losing seasons for South Milwaukee and a nine-game road losing streak that dated back to Sept. 29, 2007. As a result, the Rockets are headed back to the playoffs.

“This is all new to me,” Galewski said. “I was very nervous about this game. I was feeling the pressure for the kids because it’s been a long time. (South Milwaukee athletic director) Mr. (Ante) Udovicic has done a lot of things to help our program, so I was hoping we could do this for him and some of the other people around town.”

Udovicic was a longtime proponent for finding the Rockets a new conference, and a switch to the Woodland prior to the season paid immediate dividends.

The Rockets spent 11 years in the Southeast Conference, many of which as the league’s smallest school in terms of enrollment. Had the Rockets been in the SEC this fall, South Milwaukee would have again been the smallest school by nearly 100 students. Instead, South Milwaukee is the largest school in the Woodland by nearly 150 students.

“When we used to look at what we had to go against, playing the two Kenosha schools and the Racine schools, their athletic ability, the fact that they had D1 players – other than Phil Brunner, we haven’t had any players like that around here,” Galewski said. “We think the playing field is a little more even now.”

Just like their former SEC mates used to do to them, the Rockets took advantage of the league’s weaker teams this fall. The four league foes they defeated – St. Francis, Greenfield, Wauwatosa West and St. Thomas More – were a combined 7-29 overall. That does not include a nonconference win over Cudahy, which finished 1-8.

But becoming a successful team often requires baby steps, one of the first being defeating teams you should beat.

“Being a former South Milwaukee football player, South Milwaukee was a good program consistently every year,” Galewski said. “We want it to be like that again. I’m glad to see that we have a lot of kids interested in playing football, and it’s a process, no doubt about it. People told me it would take time and it has.”

Entering this season, the Rockets held the 14th-longest postseason drought in Wisconsin and the third-longest playoff-less strings among NOW-area teams, behind only Shorewood (state-worst 27 years) and Nicolet (19 years).

South Milwaukee has had some close calls along the way. The Rockets went 4-5 in 1999, as did the 2003 Brunner and Matt Kitzke-led squad that needed a win in the final game of the regular season to advance but were turned back when a late missed extra-point was the difference in a one-point loss.

Thursday’s win over St. Thomas More made those near misses a distant memory. Galewski hopes the winning season is a sign of things to come.

“I’ve been very open and honest with them,” he said. “A few weeks ago, we were still talking about being conference champions. That’s the way I want them to think. About conference championships, making the playoffs. It’s not just a one-time thing.”