Yep, there's a D in Kentwood
By Jane Bos / The
Grand Rapids Press
Clearly -- or maybe not so
clearly on such a rain-soaked, sodden night filled with fumbles
-- the offense of the state's top-ranked Division 1 football
team is impossible to stop.
Friday, the Falcons offense
did what it had to do. But the defense earned top-billing,
stopping relentless Rockford 2 yards short of an upset, to
post a stunning 20-14 victory.
The eighth-ranked Rams and
coach Ralph Munger put themselves into a solid position to
upend East Kentwood. With the ball on the 3-yard line and 7.4
seconds on the clock, Rockford had time for two plays.
On the first, quarterback Spencer
Klukowski threw a perfect fade to the back corner of the end
zone, and Kentwood's Dan Voetberg, a senior back, swatted it
away.
The second, a sweep left, occurred
as time expired.
Thwack. Thud. And that was
it.
Corey Crutcher, an East Kentwood
junior defensive back, tackled Bradd VanderVeen on the 2-yard
line to seal the victory before about 9,000 fans at the Ted
Carlson Memorial Field.
"Our defensive guys called
those plays," Kentwood coach John Shillito said. "They knew
Rockford had time for two plays, and they called them both.
Our guys did a tremendous job of executing. They did all night.
It was just a great high school game. Rockford played a tremendous
game. It's got to hurt right now, but they deserve a lot of
credit."
Credit the Falcons with the
win. East Kentwood (5-0 overall) stays unbeaten and alone atop
the O-K Red Metro with a 3-0 mark. Rockford is 3-1, 4-1.
"I feel great about the effort
of my team, they did what they had to do and did it well," Munger
said. "From the competitive side, well, it hurts. We had our
chances on offense. We didn't make a couple of plays in the
first half. In the second half, it was a tremendous effort,
especially on defense. On offense, we got a couple of big plays.
We just needed one more."
Trailing 14-7 at halfitme,
Rockford advanced 60 yards in five plays. Then three consecutive
pass attempts fell short, and it turned the ball over on downs.
That's when the Falcons began
the game-deciding, time-killing back-to-the-basics drive downfield.
The 80-yard, 16-play scoring march ate up eight minutes and
19 seconds. Ronald Burns Jr. scored from the 7.
Kentwood's two-point conversion
run failed, giving the Falcons a 20-7 lead with 41 seconds
left in the third quarter.
The Rams responded in kind.
They used just over five minutes
and 10 plays to advance 73 yards. Sean O'Rourke, the Rams leading
rusher with 64 yards on eight carries, ran in the final 4 yards
for the score.
Steve Kamphuis booted his second
extra point of the game to narrow the score to 20-14 with 8:24
remaining.
Again, Kentwood methodically
marched downfield, but this time, on the its 11th play, the
Falcons fumbled -- and lost -- the ball for the second time.
Jason VanderWest pounced on
the loose ball, giving the Rams one final shot at victory with
2:44 left in the game and the ball on their own 25-yard line.
That final and fateful drive,
highlighted by a pair of pair of 15-yard Klukowski passes,
wound up on the 3-yard line with time running out.
All that remained were Kentwood's
defensive heroics.
"We played good defense, and
played it for four quarters, and I am very proud of that fact," Shillito
said. "The rain was difficult for us, obviously. Maybe we need
to start practicing with a wet football."
Kentwood, which fumbled the
ball five times and lost it twice, rushed for 381 yards. Senior
fullback Noel Aleman led the way with 191 yards on 25 carries
and a 75-yard touchdown run in the first quarter.
Kyle Hinton also scored for
the Falcons on a 3-yard run in the second quarter to put his
team on top 14-0.
Kentwood did not attempt a
pass.
Rockford totaled 147 yards
on the ground, and Klukowski completed 10 of 18 passes for
151 yards. He also scored on a 5-yard run.
"Our defensive coaches really
did a masterful job of preparing our guys for the game," Munger
said. "Our kids really executed the schemes as well as they
could."
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