Rockford Rams 52. Muskegon Big Reds 44

Rockford battles back after rough start to beat Muskegon in MLIve.com Game of the Week
Jane Bos | The Grand Rapids Press, October 02, 2010 12:52 a.m.

COMSTOCK PARK -- Standing in shallow center field, er, the 45-yard-line, Rockford coach Ralph Munger assured us he was not exaggerating.

"I mean, it was huge, very huge, kay? It might have been humongous," Munger said after his team's 52-44 win against Muskegon at Fifth Third Ballpark.

A total of 10,118 fans crowded the stands, the lawn on the hill and the stadium club seats Friday to watch two state-ranked and OK Red Conference leaders.

The myriad of orange-and-black clad Rockford fans agreed. The victory was huge, leaving Rockford (5-1) tied atop the conference standings with Muskegon (4-2), West Ottawa and Grand Haven with 3-1 records.

The consensus also was that it did not start out well for the Rams.

After fumbling away the opening kickoff, watching Muskegon score on its subsequent possession and then throwing an interception on their first drive -- and that was the first two minutes -- the Rams did not look impressive.

At halftime, they trailed 17-13.

Then, something happened. Call it the seventh- inning stretch. Put on your rally caps. Here comes the Rams.

On the Big Reds' first series of the half, Rockford's defense allowed 1 yard of offense, forcing them to punt. Then, on the Rams' first play, Mark LaPrairie threw a 54-yard touchdown to Neil VanderLaan, giving them their first lead of the game, 24-13.

And that was just the first two minutes.

By the end of the quarter, Rockford scored 28 points, including a fourth-and-9 fake punt that wound up being a 35-yard touchdown pass. VanderLaan, playing the upback position, tossed it to Aaron Weston.

"I asked Steve Dengler, our special teams coach, 'Do you really feel good about this play? If you don't, we need to change it. Three hours from now I don't want to be watching and saying we should have scratched that,' " Munger said. "He said, 'Yeah, I feel good.' So we went with it."

After averaging 23 points in its first five games, the Rams offense was finally feeling good, too. They punched in 55 points on Muskegon.

The last time the Big Reds gave up 50 points came in the season finale of 1974, losing 50-6 to Muskegon Catholic Central.

LaPrairie led the way, throwing 27 times for 274 yards and four touchdown passes. Zack Schmuck scored twice on the ground.

According to Muskegon coach Shane Fairfield, the Big Reds need to check out the game film to find out where their defensive holes were. They also need to work on turnovers. They gave up five of them to the Rams.

"You're not giving yourself a chance," said Fairfield, whose team scored three times in the fourth quarter against Rockford's substitutes to make it interesting.

"We need to go back to the drawing board and find out where our holes are."

Rockford's biggest defensive weapon was senior linebacker Brett Egnatuck. The returning all-stater amassed 17 tackles.

"We knew it would be a close game and we prepared hard all week," Egnatuck said. "Playing here was really, really cool. The field was a little different, the dirt is a little different, but it was a pretty cool experience."