A tenacious Grand Haven defense bottlenecked Rockford senior running back Baron Grutter for most of the game, preventing him from getting much of a chance to grind out yardage.

Until the second half, that is.

Near the end of the third quarter, Grutter emerged and so did the Rams. The second-half onslaught powered Rockford to a 49-14 win over the host Buccaneers and earned the second-ranked team in Division 1 the outright O-K Red Conference championship.

Grutter scored two key second-half touchdowns on runs of 84 and 32 yards. Both came on the first play from scrimmage.

The conference title, Rockford's first solo crown since 1998, was celebrated by Rams coach Ralph Munger, who proclaimed "O-K Red... undisputed... champions" in the huddle to the delight of the players.

"It feels great to be able to win eight (games), but we've got one big game left," Munger said, referring to Rockford's season-ending showdown at Mona Shores.

Grand Haven was as close as 28-14 in the third quarter, but Rockford's smothering offense took over and ground out 21 unanswered points in the win.

Its one-two punch of Grutter and quarterback Steve Fusee was enough to end Grand Haven's evening, as Fusee connected on three touchdown passes in the first half. Fusee threw a 66-yard downfield spiral to Erik Hansen and then followed up with two short tosses of 8 and 10 yards to Joe Staley. Fusee ended the night 9 of 15 for 187 yards.

Then came Grutter's long runs. He took over and finished with 10 carries and 142 yards.

"Grand Haven put up a very strong defensive fight against us, we weren't powerful enough against it at first," Grutter said. "We got some crucial blocks late in the game for my scores.

"It's an excellent feeling for us to win this. We've wanted this for the last couple years and it's been a tough league. No one in the Red gives up, especially Grand Haven. As far as they were concerned this was a 0-0 game once again (to start the second half)."

The Buccaneer offense wasn't powerless against Rockford, however, as they managed 320 yards total offense to the Rams' 464. The Buccaneer scoring strikes came on touchdown passes of 12 and 27 yards from quarterback Jon Hebb to Chris LeClair.

Rockford's other scores came on a 2-yard run to Nate Teft and a 20-yard run from Drew Powell.

Grand Haven fullback Mike Pilko was the back that wouldn't go away, ending up with 19 carries and 113 yards.

By Steve Ungrey
The Grand Rapids Press

 

RHS vs. GHHS STATS
Offensive Team Stats	Tackles
Offensive Individual Stats	Defensive Take Aways
Individual Scoring	Special Teams Stats