Hudsonville makes the big play in victory
over Rockford Saturday
By Jane Bos
In a game of some astounding
plays -- one gutsy 16-yard fourth-down play, two punts rolling
inside
the 3-yard line, and too many big hits to count -- Hudsonville
tight end JD Steenland came up with the most astonishing. Deep
in Rockford's end zone, he jumped above the Rams defender in
front of him, tipped the ball and landed on his back. Then he
caught the ball, scoring the decisive touchdown in Hudsonville's
13-10 victory over Rockford.
The play not only sealed the Eagles'
first O-K Red Metro Conference championship in their second
year in the tough league, it also
gave them a contest at nationally
ranked and unbeaten Muskegon, the Red Lakeshore champion, in a crossover
game next week.
Unbeaten Hudsonville, ranked sixth
in Division 2, last won a conference title -- the O-K White
-- in 1998.
The last time the Eagles went unbeaten was in
1978, when they were 8-0-1. The team never has gone without a blemish on
its regular-season
record, though. "
I am just so excited right now, it's unbelievable," said Steenland,
a 6-foot-3, 220-pound senior. "We came out here and took it to them.
It was a great team effort." Come on, enough talk about that stuff.
Let's hear about The Play. "
Ah, it was all right, I don't know," he said, smiling and shrugging. "I
was able to catch it somehow."
It was plays like that which beat
Rockford, according to coach Ralph Munger, who still is one
win shy of 100 career
victories at Rockford during his
13-year tenure. That and other things. "
Oh, we had a couple big plays ourselves, but the team that made the biggest
plays, and they really had a number of them, it seemed like, and the
team with the most
discipline, won tonight, without question," he said. "There
was some nonsense which went on with our guys, very uncharacteristic
of this group."
Munger is refering to the number
of penalties -- 10 -- committed in the game for 85 yards in
loss. Due to these pentalites
and the Eagles, Division
1's
third-ranked Rams finished tied for second in the conference. The whistles
included two personal
fouls. "
Not to take anything away from Hudsonville, they played a great game,
but we need to stop that," Munger said. "We will go back
to the drawing board and figure out how to get a little better." That
might have been all the Rams needed Friday. Just a little bit more
in the second half. In the first half, they had the edge.
Trailing
6-0 after Eagles senior Cody Weiss scored from the 2-yard line midway
through the first quarter, Rockford responded with a 12-play,
90-yard scoring
drive of its own. Sean O'Rourke muscled in for a 10-yard score, and
after Steve Kamphuis booted in the conversion kick, the Rams
led 7-6. Kamphuis kicked a 20-yard field goal in the second quarter
to give Rockford a 10-6 lead at halftime.
In the second half,
the Eagles stepped up their defense. And Steenland caught The
Pass from senior quarterback Matt Naber to secure the
win. Steenland also recovered a fumble late in the third quarter. "Our
receivers have been great all year going up and finding the ball,
snatching it out of the air," said Hudsonville coach
Dave Duram. "They did a
nice job again tonight. But credit our offensive line, which struggled
the last couple weeks. They did a good job against a good defense."
So
credit the line -- tackles James Baguley and Jon VanSpyker, guards
Jordan DeVleiger and Bryan Klobucar and center Nate Lindtrom
-- for
helping the
tight ends, Steenland and Jesse Reimink, and the receivers, Brandon
Bosch and Jared
Hensley, rack up 162 yards in receptions Friday.