Week Five - Some Win Big, Others Win In The Last Seconds

First, I’d like to clear up something that appeared on the message board this week in regards to Mid Michigan. When I decided initially to split up the state into regions, I figured that I could cover four games each week without getting myself into trouble due to of lack of time. That’s why I split the state into four regions. Games north of Midland County would be in Northern Michigan. Football games in the Detroit area would be in Detroit. The games on the western side of the state would be West Michigan. That leaves Mid Michigan. To keep four regions, I had to make this one pretty large. I could include games like Saginaw High vs. Arthur Hill, or East Lansing vs. Lansing Everett, or maybe even Akron-Fairgrove vs. Carsonville-Port Sanilac. It would also include teams in the middle of Michigan, down by the Ohio border like Adrian. Technically, the middle of Michigan is St. Louis and Mount Pleasant is much more Mid Michigan than Lansing or Saginaw, but its how I broke the state down.

Now that we have that cleared up one more time, let’s get to the games of the past week

West Coast

Grand Rapids South Christian 39 Grand Rapids Catholic Central 37

What a shootout! After trailing until only 1:23 remained in the fourth quarter, South Christian’s quarterback Brent Geers tossed a 12 yard touchdown pass to Austin Tompkins to take their first lead. GRCC wasn’t finished though. They took the ball and drove to South Christian’s 34 yard line with only 14 seconds remaining. Unfortunately, Nick Ens tossed an incompletion on fourth down to seal their fate. Geers went 14 of 29 for 315 yards and four touchdowns for South Christian. His counterpart Ens for Catholic Central went 25 of 42 for 364 and four touchdowns. On the third play of the game, Ens tossed a 97 yard touchdown pass to Nathan Lowe. Running back Jay Filson rushed for 139 yards and had a TD for South Christian. South Christian is 4-0 overall and Catholic Central is 3-1

Mid Michigan

Carrollton 34 Saginaw Michigan Lutheran Seminary 8

The Carrollton Cavaliers are continuing their fantastic start. They sit atop the Tri Valley Conference West Division with their best record since 1992. Robert Essex led the team again this week with a 13 yard run and a 27 yard catch, both of which went for touchdowns. He finished the game with 106 yards on 18 carries. Assisting in the running game was Jay-Jay Perry, who had 92 yards and a touchdown as well. Quarterback Zach Palmreuter tossed that Essex touchdown pass and had a 35 yard interception that went the distance as well. MLS did not have they night they wanted. They fumbled the ball twice and had three passes intercepted. MLS was paced by Aaron Lindloff who had 147 yards and a touchdown on the ground.

Detroit

Birmingham Brother Rice 27 Detroit Catholic Central 24

This game came down to a field goal. Not a short one either, a 50 yard field goal! Ryan Kelly hit his second long field goal of the night (42yard and a 50yard) to give Brother Rice a win over Catholic Central. The Warriors had to battle back against the Catholic Central Shamrocks though. They were down 24-10 with only slightly over six minutes to play. Frankie Popp threw to Kevonte Martin for a touchdown, set up by a 44 yard kickoff return and a facemask penalty. Shortly thereafter, Popp tossed another TD to Mark Mokoski that tied the game with less than three minutes left. They were able to stop DCC on their next drive and get into LONG field goal range and hit the winner as time expired. Catholic Central was led by running back Anthony Capatina, who had 71 yards rushing and a touchdown pass on a flee-flicker.

Northern Michigan

Manistee Catholic Central 62 Onekama 14

MCC scored on every possession they had, except for the last one in which they took a knee. Running back Nick Kolanowski scored four times and had 218 yards on only 10 carries. Their other running back, Nick Niesen had 136 yards and three touchdowns on 10 carries as well. Quarterback Jordan Janowiak had a pair of touchdowns on four carries and racked up 46 yards. On the night, Manistee Catholic Central amassed 501 yards rushing. On Onekama’s second possession, they were able to drive 80 yards which ended with a 34 yard touchdown run by Joerdon Daldos. He also ran in the two point conversion to give Onekama an early first quarter lead, 8-6. It wouldn’t last though. The score at halftime was 42-8. Both Manistee’s offensive and defensive lines were tough, establishing the line of scrimmage and not allowing Onekama’s players to mess up what they wanted to do. Janowiak only threw two passes for MCC, completing one for 12 yards. Jake Szymakski led the Sabers with 15 tackles in their win.