Playing QB for powerful HS team in Wisconsin, she threw a touchdown pass

MILWAUKEE – Sure, it was a unique occasion when Ava Matz stepped onto the football field to play quarterback. After all, she's a ... senior.

"One of the things I make a point to do every year was start all our seniors," Pewaukee High School head football coach Justin Friske said. "It was just a matter of where we were going to put people to start.

"Ava plays free safety and quarterback, and in our scheme this week, free safety wasn't a great spot for her to be in, so it was simple as saying, 'OK, you're going to get the start at quarterback.' "

And so Matz did play quarterback for the defending Division 3 state champion Pirates, the same program for which reigning NFL defensive player of the Year T.J. Watt played quarterback in Friske's first year as head coach in 2012. Not only that, she completed a touchdown pass to Matthew Ciesielczyk in the second quarter, a 10-yard strike that earned her a shout-out on ABC national news. Pewaukee defeated Pius XI in the Oct. 7 homecoming contest, 66-6.

"(The play) kind of fell apart, but I put my trust in my guys," Matz said. "Everyone did an amazing job. I was getting hit and more or less forward-pitched it to him, and I put my trust in him to take it all the way."

"She called the play, lined it up and did it, and it's a play she's run a million times over the last four years (in practice)," Friske said. "It was nice because it was a senior handing off to a senior, blocked by seniors. It was a pretty cool deal."

A female football player isn't altogether unusual, but most appear on special teams. Matz represents something different.

"She started playing as an eighth-grader in our youth program," Friske said. "I've coached girl kickers who've been very good for us in the past, but never a girl position player, so the dynamic was a little different. Typically they would jump into practice and jump out, but Ava's there every day, the entire time. She's at weight training in the summer; she does everything with the guys.

"I feel like this is way bigger for other people than it is for us because she has not been this unique unicorn or anything; she's just been a kid on the team, and she's a senior, so she started on senior night," Friske said. "For us, I think it was much more about business as usual, but I do understand why others would see it in a different light. ...

"I think it's great that Ava can be inspirational to kids that are thinking about maybe trying it or being open to the idea that sometimes mixing it up isn't the worst thing in the world. We never differentiated Ava from anybody on the team."

Matz, a three-sport athlete who also plays basketball and softball, said her dream is to compete for the University of Wisconsin rowing team. Summers of weight training and conditioning surely don't hurt. 

"I didn't think it was going to go much further," she said of her moment on the field. "It was just the amount of support I've gotten over the years (that's been so great), and Friday was amazing. I wouldn't be there without all the support of coaches and teammates."

Matz was a quarterback for the freshman and sophomore teams on her way up the ranks at Pewaukee and played some free safety on the varsity reserve team as a junior last year. She said the experience has netted her a fair amount of positive feedback from those within the school and Instagram messages, and Matz said a sophomore girl playing for Pius chatted with her after the game.

"I love my seniors, and she's in my position group, so I get to kind of work with her every practice," said sophomore Owen Dobberstein, the primary starter at quarterback this season for Pewaukee. "To see that play and watch Matt run into the end zone, just kind of everything with the seniors, it was really special."

Dobberstein, after a strong year at quarterback for the freshman team last year, got a chance to suit up for the Pirates' final six games of the season in 2021, including five in the playoffs capped by the state final at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison. Ranked No. 4 in Division 3 this year, Pewaukee enters the final week of the season at 6-2, but those losses were both by one score to undefeated and top-ranked Catholic Memorial of Division 4 and No. 4-ranked Brookfield Central in Division 2. 

"Coming off the championship, some teams might settle a little bit the next season or might get a little complacent, but our guys are really focused on the goal," Dobberstein said. "Every week we're focusing on week to week, trying to get better, and we've done a really nice job and played really tight with some really good football teams this year."

Dobberstein has 12 passing touchdowns this season, including four against Pius.

"We have a really good receiving corps this year, and Coach Friske tells me a lot to just deliver a good ball, and if you get our guys in space, they're dangerous. It's just kind of putting the ball in the right spots."

Pewaukee, which accomplished something last year it never did with the Watt brothers by securing its first state championship, closes the regular season with a Parkland Conference game against New Berlin Eisenhower on Friday.

JR Radcliffe can be reached at (262) 361-9141 or jradcliffe@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JRRadcliffe.