By Ron Rop
LocalSportsJournal.com

NORTH MUSKEGON – When you’ve earned the home-field advantage in a playoff football game, there’s more to it than just playing on your home turf.

For North Muskegon, it also included picking the date and time for its first-round district game against Union City. A week ago, the North Muskegon brass checked the weather forecast and determined a Saturday afternoon game would be more suited to their balanced attack than a possible wet Friday night game.

Photo/David Reid

The strategy worked as the Norsemen captured a 27-14 victory over the Chargers in a Saturday afternoon game at Fred Jacks Memorial Field.

Next week, North Muskegon (10-0) will host Lawton, which defeated Schoolcraft on Friday night. The date and time of the game will be determined.

“We needed this (weather),” said NM coach Larry Witham. “It allowed us to run our offense. We are very balanced. The difference in yardage cumulative is about 35 yards run to pass. We threw the ball for about 35 yards more than running it over the season – 1,800 to 1,765.”

“Week 7 and 8 we had to battle through some rain,” said NM junior quarterback James Young. “We like to throw the ball and I like to throw the ball so having dry weather helps us move faster and I can grip the ball a little better so I’m glad we played today.” Young completed 12 of 21 passes for 200 yards with two touchdowns and one interception.

Lightning did strike in the opening seconds of the game when Young unloaded a long pass down the right sideline that landed in the arms of Alec Newville for a 62-yard touchdown strike. That came on North Muskegon’s first play from scrimmage. On the play, Newville suffered an injury and did not return. 

“We decided to wing it and that’s what we normally do,” Witham said. “We usually throw the ball the first play of the game when we get field position. We had a certain call we wanted to take a look at and it just happened to pay off.”

Photo/David Reid

Union proved it belonged in the playoffs with a strong running game and a solid offensive line that opened holes for running backs Riley Laird and Dylon MacDonald.

“They possessed the ball and we wanted to make sure when we had the ball that we capitalized,” said Witham. “We’ve had a number of teams that have move the ball down the field in a slower fashion and that’s pretty smart. It keeps our offense off the field.”

In fact, on the Chargers’ first drive of the game, that duo led the way to an eight-play drive that culminated with Laird sprinting through a large hole in the line and running 42 yards for a touchdown. A missed conversion left North Muskegon with a slim 7-6 lead.
The game appeared to be heading to “track meet” status when North Muskegon went on another dive that resulted in another first-quarter touchdown. This time, quarterback James Young hit freshman Cullen Bartos on a 21-yard touchdown pass. The 2-point conversion failed.

On the first play of the second quarter, North Muskegon pounced on a fumble that stopped the Chargers’ next drive.
Later in the quarter, Laird picked off a Young pass near the goal line to thwart a North Muskegon drive.

Photo/David Reid

But in the final seconds of the half, North Muskegon was on the move again and was rewarded with a 3-yard touchdown run by Tristan Thomas with 32 second left before the half. The 2-point conversion again failed and the hosts took that 19-6 lead into the half.

Both teams went on long, time-consuming drives, but came up empty. That is, until North Muskegon scored an insurance touchdown with 5:12 left in the game.

Thomas scored his second of the game from 2 yards out and a Young pass to Chuck Meyers gave North Muskegon a 27-6 lead. Thomas finished with 12 carries for 62 yards and two touchdowns.

Union City (6-4) scored on a 9-yard touchdown run by senior Landyn Crance with 3:36 remaining.

Next is Lawton, a big, physical team that has a line that averages about 250 pounds.

“They also have a very good quarterback, a very effective passer when they want to throw it,” Witham said. “As long as we get some weather, our passing game will help us out a little bit and we will be opportunistic running the football.”

Take a look at more photos from the Norse win shot by David Reid and video shot by Kam Willer.