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The visiting Spartans finished their 4-5 season took advantage of five Crimson Tide giveaways to disappoint a large home crowd with a 28-21 victory.

The loss was a kick to the stomach for Edgerton for several reasons.

The first was it prevented the Crimson Tide from sharing the Rock Valley Conference title with Evansville and Delavan-Darien, those schools finished 6-1 in the Rock Valley, Edgerton finished 5-2.

Second, it likely was the final home game that Russ Lietz will coach. The well-respected Lietz is retiring from teaching and coaching after spending the past 32 seasons on the Crimson Tide staff, including being head coach since 2020.

And third, the loss will prevent the Crimson Tide from hosting a first-round WIAA Division 4 first-round playoff game. Edgerton dropped down to a No. 5-seed in Division 4, Section 4 and will travel to No. 4-seeded Lake Mills.

There were many tears shed by Edgerton players as they broke out of their postgame huddle with Lietz, who also was hit hard by the loss.

“We tried to take the pressure off the kids,” Lietz said. “It was a chance to put a brick in the memorial wall. And it was right there for the taking. But we can’t survive (five) turnovers.”

Four of those turnovers occurred when Edgerton was in the shadow of the McFarland end zone. Edgerton fumbled the ball away at the McFarland 14 on its final drive of the first half, threw an interception in the end zone on third-and-9 from the Spartan 16 and fumbled at the McFarland 4 in the third quarter and then saw its final chance of tying the game slip away with a fumble on the Spartan 14 with less than a minute to go in regulation.

The Spartans, who are now a No. 7 seed in Division 3, overcame deficits of 7-0 and 14-7 by playing a turnover-free game.

“I think the pressure got to the kids,” Lietz said. “We were dead in the locker room at halftime. We scored that touchdown on our opening drive and I thought OK.”

But the Spartans were able to convert eight of 14 third downs and when they did punt they made sure to keep the ball away from Eli Kittleson. The junior did catch a 23-yard pass from quarterback Brady Buskager to open the scoring and finished with three receptions for 57 yards.

Buskager played his usual standout game on offense and defense. The bruising 6-foot, 205-pound senior rushed for touchdowns covering 1 and 9 yards and finished with 117 yards on 28 attempts. He also was a force at linebacker.

But in the end, Buskager was left trying to explain the emotional loss.

“It was a combination of senior night and Coach coaching his last (home) game,” Buskager said. “And it was for the championship, so it was a combination of things.”

Lietz reminded the team that the playoffs remain.

“Sometimes the football gods tease you a little bit,” Lietz said. “But I’ll take this team anywhere. Nobody picked us at the beginning of the season. The fact that we were tied for first place going into the last week, no one saw that coming.”

And no one saw a five-turnover game coming Friday night, especially the group of Edgerton players and coaches.

MCFARLAND 28, EDGERTON 21

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Scoring summary: E—Eli Kittleson 23 pass from Brady Buskager (Anthony Stowell kick). M—Jayden Bloodsaw, 4 run (Joe Fortune kick). E—Buskager, 9 run (Stowell kick). M—Grayson Gauwitz, 2 pass from Garrett Crull (Mason Reddeman kick). M—Bloodsaw, 3 run (Reddeman kick). E—Buskager, 1 run (Stowell kick). M—Gauwitz, 18 pass from Crull (Reddeman kick).

Statistics: First downs—M 20, E 21. Rushes-yards—M 31-147, E 37-156. Yards passing—M 180, E 167. Passing (comp.-att.-had intercepted)—M 17-29-0, E 12-25-2. Fumbles-lost—M 0-0, E 3-3. Penalties-yards—M 6-70, E 8-65.

Individual leaders—Rushing M Jayden Bloodsaw 23-156; E Brady Buskager 28-117. Receiving—M Parker Roh 4-59, E Eli Kittleson 3-57. Passing (att.-comp.-yards)—M Garrett Krull 17-28-180, E Brady Buskager 12-25-167.