Caledonia 49, West Ottawa 28
Some things were missing Friday night.
There were no middle schoolers in their purple and white youth football jerseys weaving through a crowd with a fist full of bills on the hunt for popcorn and a bag of Skittles.
There was no popcorn. No concession stands at all.
There was no crowd – just two masked spectators per participant at Friday night's OK Red Conference football opener between Caledonia and West Ottawa inside Caledonia's Ralph E. Myers Stadium.
There was no student section full of classmates shouting until they were horse. There was no Caledonia marching band, blaring “On Caledonia” over and over again as the Fighting Scots rolled up 49 points in a 49-28 win over the visiting Panthers. The tatterdemalion scoreboard did not show the score, the game clock or any other pertinent information due to a malfunction in the system. There were no working lights during the first half, forcing the teams to cut halftime to five minutes in a game that already kicked off at 6 p.m. in an effort to eke every snap out of the waning sunlight.
But the lights did come on. There was a high school football game, played on the grass, as temperatures dropped from the 60's to the 50's and down towards the 40's while the sun dropped. And in the end there was a crowd of Fighting Scot varsity football players standing on the bench and along the edge of the track holding their helmets and doing their best to recall the words to the school fight song “On Caledonia” as they sang it at those who were able to attend.
“We are going to sing,” Caledonia varsity football coach Tom Burrill told his players before sending them from the postgame huddle. “We are going to put our gaiters up and we are going to sing!”
Caledonia had been ready to celebrate for a while after turning a one-score game into a lopsided affair with three touchdowns in the final five minutes of the third quarter.
“It was really nice to go out and compete for the first time. The whole team was just really excited to go out and compete. Overall, I think we're pretty happy with the 'W' tonight,” said Caledonia senior guard Blake Townsend.
Senior all-state running back Carson VanderHoff rushed 28 times for 224 yards and three touchdowns, and the sophomore duo of quarterback Mason Mckenzie and slot receiver Justice Reed combined for four receptions for 85 yards and two more touchdowns. McKenzie, in his first varsity ballgame, was 10-of-15 passing for 125 yards and three touchdowns, also connecting with Caleb Sprague for a seven-yard score.
Townsend was happy with the play along the offensive front, but isn't satisfied. He knows there is a lot of work to do yet as the team preps for a Sept. 25 match-up with Rockford. He was impressed with the team's new QB.
“He is not the biggest guy, but I trust him. The whole offensive line trusts him. We're ready to roll with him,” Townsend said of McKenzie.
Junior Andrew Gray capped off the Caledonia scoring with a 21 yard touchdown run with 5:41 to play.
Time and again the offensive line opened up holes for VanderHoff and the Fighting Scot backs to run through. On VanderHoff's pair of third quarter touchdowns runs there was Townsend leading the way looking for some Panther in the second level of the defense to hit after he and VanderHoff ran through a big hole in the left side.
West Ottawa quarterback Jake Zimmer was 34-of-50 passing for 346 yards and four touchdowns in the ballgame, and also rushed ten times for 103 yards. His number one target was big wide out Blake Bosma who had 17 catches for 210 yards and hauled in all four Panther touchdowns.
Bosma capped off the opening drive of the game with a 51-yard touchdown reception for the Panthers, and added TD receptions covering eight, 24 and five yards. His second touchdown catch came midway through the third quarter, and he hauled in the two-point pass from Zimmer to pull his team within 21-14. The score came at the end of an 11-play, 95 yard drive that started when Caledonia fumbled the ball away inside the Panther ten-yard-line on its first possession of the second half.
The Scots answered right back with a ten-yard VanderHoff touchdown run, and two plays in to the Panthers' next drive the Caledonia sophomore Elijah Haan ripped the ball away from Panther running back Isaiah Reynolds and fell on it to put his team in position to score again Two plays later VanderHoff scored on an eight-yard run. Suddenly a one-touchdown Caledonia lead was up to 35-14.
That lead grew to 42-14 when McKenzie connected with Reed on a 21-yard touchdown pass on the final play of the third quarter.
Caledonia kicker Paul Vogeler was perfect on his seven extra-point attempts.
Reed's first touchdown was a quick answer to the Panthers' opening score of the game, a 40-yard touchdown reception from McKenzie that put the Scots up 7-6 with Voegler's extra-point kick. West Ottawa's kicker missed the extra-point kick following his team's first score.
The Caledonia line also busted through to block a field goal attempt by the Panthers late in the first half, after the Scots had pushed their lead to 21-6 thanks to a five-yard touchdown run by VanderHoff and Sprague's seven-yard touchdown reception.
Cedar Springs 34, Thornapple Kellogg 7
The Trojans were happy to be within seven points at the half, but couldn't keep hanging around with the Red Hawks as the second half wore on Friday.
Cedar Springs opened its time as a member of the OK Gold Conference with a 34-7 win over visiting Thornapple Kellogg Friday. The Red Hawks led 14-7 at the half and put together a nine and a half minute drive in the third quarter to begin to pull away from TK and then tacked on two fourth quarter touchdowns.
Cole Shoobridge traded time at quarterback with Reese Garbrecht for the Trojans, and scored his team's lone touchdown on a short run in the second quarter before eventually leaving the game with an injury.
Senior kicker Mitchell Middleton booted the extra-point kick for the Trojans, and did a whole lot more throughout the night at running back and outside linebacker.
“He played a ton of defense and carried the ball a ton, and was as horse all the way through,” Dock said. “I am extremely proud of them in that regard. I said we were going to have to rely a lot on our seniors. They played a ton of football. We have to work to build depth.”
Parma Western 42, Hastings 20
The Saxons had the chance to pull within a touchdown midway through the fourth quarter of their season opener against the Parma Wester varsity football team.
The Panthers fell on a Saxon fumble though and pushed on to a 42-20 victory inside Baum Stadium at Johnson Field in their Interstate-8 Athletic Conference match-up to start the 2020 football season.
Parma Western scored the game's opening points on a 15-yard touchdown pass from Nolan Wheeler to Bode Brown two and a half minutes into the ballgame and led the rest of the evening. Another Wheeler touchdown pass, covering 26 yards to Landon French, in the third quarter extended the Panther lead to 28-7.
Hastings struck back with a nine-yard touchdown run by Keegan Olson two and a half minutes into the fourth quarter and then the Saxon defense forced the Panthers to punt for the first time, getting the ball back for its offense with 7:47 to go in the ballgame.
Olson picked up a first down inside the Western 30-yard-line with just over six minutes to go, but lost a fumble. Two plays later Wheeler connected with French again on a 68-yard touchdown pass to ice the game. That was the last of four lost fumbles on the night for the Saxons.
The two teams did trade touchdowns after that in the final four and a half minutes. TJ Russell scored on a six-yard run for the Saxons' final points of the night with 4:10 to play.
Olson had two touchdowns on the night. He scored his team's first points of the season on a six-yard run with 4:09 to play before the half. Victor Ramirez booted the extra-point to pull the Saxons within 14-7 at the time.
The Panthers managed to tack on a five-yard touchdown run by Wheeler with 13 seconds left in the first half though to push their lead back to 21-7 .
Wheeler was 11-of-18 passing in the ballgame for 235 yards and the three touchdowns. Brown rushed 12 times for 9 yards. French haled in for receptions for 155 yards.
The Panthers outgained the Saxons 449 yards to 302.
Mason Denton completed 5-of-6 passes for the Saxons for 33 yards. Olson carried the ball 14 times for 120 yards. Hastings had 269 yards on the ground as a team. Robby Slaughter rushed six times for 69 yards. Russell had 38 yards on the ground and Dan Harp 36 to go along with four receptions for 28 yards.
Corbin Ulrich led the Saxon defense with seven tackles. Slaughter had 6.5 and Zach Perry 4.5. The Saxons Matt Thompson had 3.5 tackles and an interception.
Lakewood 27, Perry 0
A whole new Viking offense put up 27 points in the first half and a simplified Viking defense didn't allow Perry a point.
The Lakewood varsity football team opened the 2020 season with a 27-0 shut out of Greater Lansing Activities Conference foe Perry.
“They did their jobs. They did their assignments. They played their positions and we went out and hit,” Lakewood head coach Matt Markwart said. “They all did their jobs was the biggest one. We weren't out of position. They did their rotations right. They got into what they needed to do by formation and they went out and played and hit.
“They just played really, really hard.”
He said he and his staff simplified the defense after the disjointed preseason work the team was able to get in. There were fewer moving parts to the defense, with one defender adjusting positioning based on the offense's look rather than as many as four or five.
Lakewood picked up a pair of Rambler fumbles in the ballgame and picked off two Rambler passes. Nick Helt kept his toes inbounds along the sideline as he secured one of the two interceptions and Miseal Mendez had the other Viking interception.
Brent Sweet, Garrett Stank, Sawyer Stoepker and Denny Sauers each scored a touchdown for the Vikings in the first half.
“We put in a whole new offense in the last two weeks off, two weeks on kind of thing. We started last winter doing it figuring we'd have a normal year and be able to get it in and do things,” Markwart said. “We put a new offense in. the kids have really worked hard to learn it. We were rough at some points and had moments of brilliance, and the kids did a great job tonight.”
The Vikings are going away from the spread offense this fall.
“We're a split back veer offense now, with the dive option we're reading things and doing things off of that. A lot of the plays look similar to set up other teams. The kids have bought in,” Markwart said.
He was happy with what he has seen from quarterback Jayce Hanson in learning the new offense, an offense that takes a bit more work for a quarterback to master.
Coloma 36, Delton Kellogg 34
Drew Goodline lofted a pass from the 50-yard-line deep down the right side and Cody Palgen ran under it, hauled it in and had just enough speed to get to the goal-line with less than two minutes to play to score the final points in a back and forth ballgame between their Comets and the Delton Kellogg Panthers Friday.
The Coloma varsity football team opened the 2020 season with a 36-34 win over their Southwestern Athletic Conference rivals at Delton Kellogg High School.
The Panthers had just scored two touchdowns in a span of less than four minutes to take a 34-30 lead in the ballgame that the Comets had led since the closing minute of the first half. Coloma led 18-12 at the break and pushed its lead to 24-12 early in the third quarter – which was the biggest lead of the ballgame for either team.
Delton Kellogg had 6-0 and 12-6 leads in the first half. The Panthers marched towards the Comet end zone again in the closing moments, getting as close as the Coloma 35-yard-line before DK quarterback Payton Smoczynski had a pass picked off.
Bradley Bunch scored that season opening TD for the Panthers on a five-yard run, and Hunter Belew scored on a one-yard TD run for the Panthers four and a half minutes into the second quarter.
A three-yard TD run by Goodline and a 13-yard TD pass from Goodline to Timmy Schroeder set the Comets up with their 18-12 halftime lead. A Delton Kellogg fumble near midfield set up the Comets for that go-ahead touchdown late in the first half.
The Comets moved their lead to 24-12 with a ten-yard touchdown pass from Goodline to Noah Schwanke.
DK answered with a long drive of its own that ended in a short touchdown run by Bunch and a Bunch two-point run to get within 24-20.
That Delton Kellogg TD was answered by another quick strike from the Comets, a five-yard TD run by James Mathis. The Comets held a 30-20 lead until Belew scored on a one-yard run with 6:10 to play in the game, and added a two-point run himself.
Coloma wasn't able to fall on a squib kick by the Panthers, and Delton Kellogg came out of the pile on the ensuing kickoff with the football and moved down to take its first lead of the second half on a five-yard run by Belew with 2:15 to go in the game.
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