Rockford Rams 07. Lowell Red Arrows 28

Gabe Dean pushes Lowell past Rockford in matchup of area powerhouses
Jeff Chaney | The Grand Rapids Press, August 25, 2011 10:42 p.m

LOWELL -- Gabe Dean picked up right where he left off.

Last year, the Lowell quarterback earned Division 1-2 Player of the Year honors with an incredible season of running and passing the football.

Dean, now a senior, looked in midseason form in the much-anticipated battle against visiting Rockford on Thursday, running through and passing over the Rams for an impressive 28-7 victory in front of nearly 8,500 fans.

Dean ran for 81 yards and two touchdowns, and threw for 201 and another score in the win.

He now is well on his way to another season like last year, when he ran for 2,000 yards, threw for 1,750 and scored 62 touchdowns.

"Personally, it was good tonight," Dean said. "But I couldn’t have done this without the other 10 guys (on offense). The first half was great. We did what we had to do. Our number one goal was to come out and play hard football, and that’s what we did."

The efficient Red Arrows did capitalize on a mistake-prone Rockford team in the first half.

On the first possession of the game, the Rams forced Lowell to pun, and appeared to be lined up with good field position.

But a fumble by Rockford deep man K.C. Zenner gave the Red Arrows the ball on the Rams 21-yard line.

Three plays later, Dean scrambled for a 20-yard touchdown run on a play that was originally set up to be a pass.

On Rockford’s next possession, Rams quarterback Mark LaPrairie fumbled, and the ball was recovered by Lowell’s Pierce Watson.

That gave the Red Arrows another short field to work with at the Rams 35-yard line.

Six plays later, Dean plowed in from 3 yards out for a 14-0 lead, stunning and silencing the orange-clad Rockford side of the stadium, and gaining control over a shaken Rockford team just eight minutes into the game.

The Red Arrows kept the pressure on in the second quarter, as Dean found receiver Renn Osborne on a 26-yard scoring strike and fullback Josh Addington went in from three yards out for a 28-0 halftime lead.

"We felt pretty good at the half," said Lowell coach Noel Dean after his nephew quarterbacked the team to victory. "It comes down to, Lowell kids have a lot of pride and they want to come out and play hard. Kids play a lot of sports at Lowell, and they are competitive by nature."

Staring at a running clock if Lowell scored again, the Rams played better in the second half and got on the scoreboard in the third quarter on an 11-yard run by running back Ryan Hartley.

But Rockford was unable to overcome those two early fumbles, an illegal handoff on a 94-yard kickoff return for a touchdown that was called back and an injured LaPrairie, who left in the first half.

He was replaced by Kyle Short.

"Kids make mistakes," Rockford coach Ralph Munger said. "We were totally out of sync the whole game on offense, but you have to give credit to their defense. We just have to prepare a little better. We’ll get something out of this."

The huge win against the Rams keeps a streak of season-opening wins for the Red Arrows that stretches back to the 1993 season.

"I don’t know how we pulled this off. I’m as surprised as you are," Noel Dean said. "It was a full effort on all three sides of the ball, offense, defense and special teams. It was a great team effort."