HART — Montague entered Thursday's game with Hart confident they
could move the ball on offense. And the Wildcats did - but it's a lot
harder to move the ball when you don't have it.
Hart executed a
plan to play keep-away to near-perfection, holding the Wildcats to just
26 offensive plays - and none in the entire first quarter - in a 30-20
upset. It was the first time in 26 seasons that Hart has beaten the
Wildcats.
"Credit to Hart," Montague coach Phil Koops said. "(Hart coach) Joe Tanis is a friend of mine. We're both Olivet College
alumni, and he does a really good job at a school that has
struggled at football for a long time. What Joe gets out of
those kids is pretty amazing, and I'm happy for him. I'm super
disappointed that it had to be against us....but it was a great job by them."
The
Wildcats (0-2, 0-1 West Michigan Conference Lakes) had only one
offensive possession in the entire first half, in part because Cole Moss
made the offense taking the field moot by taking a kickoff back for a
touchdown after Hart opened the game with a score. The Pirates avoided
kicking to Moss all game, but Montague ran a nifty end-around play to
get the ball to him on the kickoff anyway, and Moss hit the sideline and
outraced everyone for the score.
Unfortunately for the 'Cats,
Hart then rang up a 10-plus minute possession for another touchdown,
meaning Montague finally took its first snap with 8:07 left in the
second quarter. The Wildcats did turn that one first-half possession
into a score, a short quarterback keeper by Max Dyer, and tied it at 14
with the two-point conversion, but Hart managed to get in the end zone
in under two minutes before the half - then booted the kickoff off a
Wildcat blocker and recovered it, denying the 'Cats the chance to
answer.
To open the third quarter, a pivotal miscue cost
Montague a drive. Facing third down close to scoring range, Dyer found
himself alone in the backfield when a communication error led to no one
being there to receive his handoff. He was taken down, and then sacked
again on fourth down.
Later, down 10 points with six minutes
left in the fourth quarter, the Wildcats fumbled a snap and Hart
recovered. The Pirates then did what they'd done all day - run out the
clock. The two miscues were the only two possessions on which Montague
didn't score, but it only had four in all.
Montague's Dane Roesler (center) leaps to collect a two-point conversion pass during Thursday's game at Hart. The Wildcats lost, 30-20.
"I don't know who it was on the fumbled snap," Koops said. "(Our offensive line) made a giant
hole on that play. That would have been a touchdown...You've got two drive-killers, and I think those
were the two offensive possessions that we didn't score when we had the
ball."
Just as Napoleon did in week one, Hart wore the Wildcat
defense down with its physical attack; Tanis said after the game that
his team did some shifting up front that the Pirates hadn't previously
shown, hoping to further confuse the Montague defense. Hart ripped off a
few chunk plays, but it was again mostly a de facto battering ram as
the Pirates kept throwing ballcarriers up the middle.
"They're just plugging and chugging
on offense, doing what they do," Koops said. "Sweep, power, sweep, counter, counter
sweep, and then that dang wedge play where they snap it to the
upback and all their guys get foot to foot and just wedge forward. They
did a great job. Credit to them. We did not
execute well enough to win the game."
Moss did well when he
got the ball - seven carries for 80 yards in addition to his kickoff
return - but went down in the third quarter with a cramp, which may have
affected him late in the game. Dyer had 43 yards rushing with his
touchdown, and Dane Roesler ran for a score. Dyer's best run of the
night, a 50-yarder, set up Roesler's eight-yard touchdown.
It
was a team effort on defense, with six Wildcats collecting either five
or six solo tackles due partially to the volume of plays run by Hart.
The Wildcats face another tall task next week when Oakridge visits. The Eagles are also 0-2 after losing a thriller to Ravenna.
"Everything that I agree with as a
football coach about how you win a football game - play keep-away with
your offense, own the time of possession, steal possessions
on special teams - they did all that stuff and we didn't."
