Dukes Pound Spartans
- Updated: September 12, 2023
Photo Courtesy of Rod Brower
The Whitefish Bay Blue Dukes evened their North Shore Conference record at 1-1 after a 35-10 thrashing of the West Bend West Spartans on Friday night, 35-21. The Dukes are now 2-2 on the year as they seek to make it back to the playoffs.
It was all Blue Dukes from the jump as running back Harry Bortolotti took the ball 72-yards to the house on the very first play of the game for what would be his first of four rushing touchdowns on the night. The Spartans did their best to respond with an 8-minute drive, but they had to settle for a field goal from 40 yards as the Dukes D bent but didn’t break.
The Blue Dukes would respond quickly with another Bortolotti touchdown run, this one from 12 yards, for a 14-3 lead after the end of one quarter. Quarterback Ben Volpe snuck into the endzone from a yard out to push the lead to 21-3 at the half. Volpe finished the game with 43 yards rushing on 7 carries.
After two more rushing touchdowns from Bortolotti the scoring would end for Bay after the third. The junior back finally eclipsed the 100-yard mark this season with 186 yards on 14 carries for an average of 13.3 yards. In total, 9 different Blue Dukes carried the ball 38 times for 331 yards in what was a vintage rushing performance at Lubar.
The Spartans would tack on a touchdown late against the Duke backups to bring the score to 35-10.
Senior Carter Smith flew around the field all night and led the Dukes D with 6 total tackles. John Dorsey, Bo Behrendt, and Quinn “Gator” McCarthy each added 5 tackles. Defensive lineman Rashi Earl and Kellen Busalacchi added two tackles for loss apiece, Brodie Gann-Dudgeon recovered a fumble, and Axl Woods hauled in his second interception.
Box Score Ι Photo Gallery
Statistics courtesy of Brandon Rindfleisch
Photo Gallery courtesy of Rod Brower
Next Up…
It’s a short week for the Blue Dukes as they travel to West Bend on Thursday to take on the East Suns (3-1, 1-1) in a pivotal NSC game on September 14th. Kickoff will be at 7pm.
