He came to play soccer but now this Welsh import is the toast of Cedarburg football

MEQUON – Dan Gill came to the United States to play football, just not this kind.

He’s Welsh.

Football. The kind he learned as a tot. The kind that set him up for a scholarship at UW-Milwaukee next season.

But it’s hard to imagine where the Cedarburg Bulldogs would be if he hadn’t caught on quickly to the version of football played on this side of the Atlantic.

Certainly not in the third round of the WIAA Division 2 playoffs. Not without the lanky Gill driving a tipped ball through the uprights from 27 yards with 11 seconds left to win a North Shore rematch with Homestead, 17-16, on a blustery Friday night.

“The best night of my life,” Gill said.

The second-best night?

“The first game-winner against Whitefish Bay two weeks ago,” said Gill, who made three that night in a 9-6 victory in the regular-season finale. “That’s the second-best night of my life.”

The son of a soccer coach, Gill hadn’t played football before deciding to go out for the team as a senior. His more experienced teammates were happy then and are even happier now.

“They were glad to have found a kicker after looking for one for so long,” Gill said.

“I used to play rugby back in Wales. So I had that little bit of similarity. It just felt quite natural when I started kicking a football. It just felt like I was playing rugby all over again.”

Homestead beat Cedarburg, 10-0, in the teams’ first meeting three weeks earlier in the de facto North Shore title game. The rematch came with higher stakes.

While the Highlanders ended their season 9-2, the Bulldogs went to 8-3 and earned their first trip to Level 3 since 2014.

“Just an incredible game,” Cedarburg coach Brian Leair said. “I told the kids down there it’s all kind of a blur. So much happened in that second half and down that stretch….

“This is what high school football’s all about. Kids playing hard, making big plays in playoff time. It’s special. Really special.”

Logan Zahour ran for Cedarburg’s touchdowns, the first from inches with 1:50 left in the first quarter and the second from 6 yards out with 6:23 remaining.

The second put the Bulldogs up, 14-10. The Highlanders responded with a drive that finished with a 5-yard touchdown pass from Tommy O’Hagan to Sean West. West, who was involved in every Highlanders scoring play – he’d earlier thrown for a touchdown and kicked a field goal – missed the point-after kick into a nasty wind, leaving the two-point margin.

Cedarburg started its final drive on its own 24 with 1:45 to play. The Bulldogs got downfield with a long strike from Alex Evanoff to Joah Kaminsky and finally faced fourth and 8 from the 15 with 11 seconds on the clock.

On came Gill.

“We trust him so much,” Kaminsky said. “After the Bay game, with all the rain and stuff and getting those field goals in the worst conditions we played in, we trusted him 100%. He was great for us all year.”

Gill connected from 32 yards, only to have the kick waved off. A Highlanders encroachment penalty put him 5 yards closer but meant he’d have to do it again.

“First time I was really hoping they were going to count it,” Gill said. “And then the second time I just had to compose myself, forget that it happened and go again.

“My stomach sank because I saw he got a tip to it, and then watching it go through the posts was the best feeling in the world.”

Cedarburg will play Friday at Kaukauna, a No. 1 seed that was a state semifinalist last year. The Galloping Ghosts (10-1) beat West DePere, 13-7.

“I like our team,” Leair said. “We play good defense. We’ve been opportunistic on offense. We have a good kicking game.

“Do I think we can keep dancing? I certainly do. But next week is more of a challenge.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Cedarburg field goal beats Homestead in WIAA Level 2 football playoffs