It was almost a tale of two different games for Montague Friday in in its season opening 46-35 defeat at Napoleon.
On
the one hand, the Wildcat offense, which returned only one starter
(Cole Moss) and was breaking in a whole new line, exceeded all but the
most rosy of expectations with its performance. They never punted. New
quarterback Max Dyer made several huge plays with his arm and his legs.
Moss showed his explosiveness with a kickoff return touchdown. But for
Napoleon's final kickoff banging off a Wildcat upman and the Pirates
recovering, enabling them to run out the clock, Montague may have gotten
in the end zone for a sixth time.
"We scored 35 pts against a
veteran team, and we had a first-time starting quarterback,
first-time fullback, a first-time wing, new kids at receiver, and every
lineman
had never started a varsity game as an offensive lineman," Koops said.
"I felt pretty good about how we played, especially offensively."
Then
there was the defense. It wasn't necessarily through fault of the
Wildcat players that Napoleon used its wing-T attack to terrific effect
and moved the ball seemingly at will. It was mostly a question of
experience, and in particular experience in the weight room. The
Pirates' veteran players just have more of it, Koops said.
"Defensively,
we got physically run over," Koops said. "They're big, strong kids
running the wing-T. Our kids are working in the right room, but those
kids lift too. Their
kids are seniors that have had two more years in the weight room than we
have. They blew
us off the ball pretty good and we couldn't get them off the field."
There
were big plays along the way for Napoleon, but mostly it was the
Pirates bleeding Montague out with four and five-yard gains, churning
out first downs.
The 'Cats had their own potent offense,
though. Dyer got his varsity career as a quarterback off to a fine start
by racing for a 67-yard touchdown to open the game. When Napoleon
scored, Moss took the kick back for six, and the track meet was on.
A
key difference through three quarters was Napoleon scoring two-point
conversions; the Wildcats kicked PATs, but Napoleon didn't and was
3-for-4 going for two through three quarters, the difference in a 30-28
score, despite Dyer hitting Levi Auger for two scores.
The
teams traded touchdowns again in the fourth, but Napoleon's two-pointer
on their score, which came first, made it a two-possession game at
38-28. Dyer ran in another touchdown - he was responsible for four, two
passing and two running - to get back within three points, but the 'Cats
never saw the ball again.
The offensive performance is
certainly heartening for the Wildcats, but obviously it won't matter how
many points Montague can score without stopping anybody. And while
Montague has a young roster, Koops isn't going to use it as a crutch.
"We have to see how good we can get and how fast we can get there," Koops said. "We're
young, but that doesn't matter to these seniors. We have to get good
right now for Cole Moss, Levi Auger...and this senior group. They're good
players who have dedicated a lot to the program. We want to get as many wins for them in their senior year as we can."
Montague
will get another chance to do that next week at Hart in both teams'
West Michigan Conference Lakes opener. The league appears wide open, as
several top teams faced quality opponents in week one and came out on
the short end.
"I think it's a wide open league race, and I think you'll have a race
where the champion has a loss, or a three-way tie," Koops said. "There will be a lot of
competitive games across the league this year."
