MONTAGUE — Both Whitehall and Montague had big offensive days in week three victories, so naturally their week four rivalry battle turned into a defensive slugfest.
On a night in which no points were scored in the second half, the Vikings came up with two late interceptions to hang on for a 13-6 win and retain the rivalry trophy, the Bell, for a fifth straight season.
"We just wanted to execute everything we
could, and we didn't expect them to hang with us, but they played a
great game," Whitehall's Hunter Osborne, who had the game-sealing interception in the final minute, said. "They had a lot of energy, and they just stuck with it, and props to them. We finished it and got out of here."
Osborne was responsible for the final six points of the game, too, going in for a one-yard touchdown several plays after he got his team into scoring range by catching a short pass from Cole Essebaggers and making a series of impressive moves to fight through the Wildcat defense for a 29-yard gain. Corde Anderson had a 19-yard catch later in the drive as well.
At that point it was late in the second quarter, and it seemed likely both teams' offenses would continue to put up points, but instead the second half saw a series of defensive stops. The first three possessions of the half were punts, and by the time the fourth ended, Montague had to go for it on fourth down in Whitehall territory because it was running out of time in the fourth quarter. Quarterback Eli Petersen was sacked on the play.
It turned out that the Wildcats (1-3, 1-2 West Michigan Conference Lakes) got two more chances thanks to strong defense and a couple of key penalties on Whitehall, but both of those ended in interceptions - one by Colten Kyser on a third-and-1 pass that Kyser snared almost before he saw it, and the second by Osborne on fourth down.
"This group is very resilient and they
were able to overcome, and they were able to overcome adversity and overcome the stakes," Whitehall coach Tony Sigmon said. "Maybe that's
the story tonight. And our defense. Our defense played fantastic."
Essebaggers and Hunter Peterson led the Viking defense with eight tackles each, and Anderson had six, two of them for a loss, and a fumble recovery.
Montague managed 168 total yards on offense (in fact, nine more than Whitehall had). Nearly half of them came on a beautiful throw from Petersen to Cole Moss that the latter caught in stride and raced to pay dirt for a 68-yard score that got the 'Cats on the board early in the second quarter.
Montague didn't do much throwing the rest of the game until circumstances forced its hand. Coach Phil Koops said he felt his team optimized its chances at victory if it could keep Whitehall's explosive offense off the field.
"We thought if we could snap the ball 55-plus times on offense, we'd have a good chance to win the game and limit their good athletes," Koops said. "It almost worked."
Struggles with penalties and communication on offense were issues for Montague, which had to use all three of their timeouts earlier than it would've preferred in the second half because of issues getting out of the huddle and lining up correctly. There were also issues with pre-snap penalties.
One bad miss that the 'Cats paid for was a punt snap over Petersen's head, forcing him to fall on the ball at his team's own 12-yard line. That came one possession after the 'Cats had fumbled the ball away to open the game, but were able to come up with a fourth-down stop inside its own 5-yard line.
There would be no reprieve the second time around, as Liam Leeke opened the scoring with an impressive 12-yard run, breaking a few tackles along the way.
The Wildcat defense, though, continued its season-long trend of strong play. Holding a Viking squad that dropped 35 points on Zeeland West a week prior to 13 - seven of which coming due to a short field - is no mean feat. Despite the offensive struggles, their effort has impressed Koops.
"I want to compliment our kids on how hard they played," Koops said. "We certainly made our share of mistakes, but we played really hard. This thing is a growing process. If I could take something out of my body and give it to them and say, 'This will get us over the hump; it will make us better faster,' I'd do it, but it doesn't work that way...We've played one-possession games in our three losses, to good teams. We haven't quit on each other."
For Whitehall (3-1, 2-0 WMC Lakes), there's much to clean up. In addition to some struggles on offense of its own, some key penalties helped extend Wildcat drives or submarine their own. Whether that was some sort of emotional letdown after the Zeeland East win or just a one-off was for the team to decide, but it gives the coaches something to concentrate on next week.
"We've got to be better," Sigmon said. "If we're going to play championship
football, we can't do those types of things. That's
just a matter of fact, so we've got to be better at it. We've got to
study the film. We've got to see where the deficiencies are and go from
there."
The game may have been somewhat sloppy by Viking standards, but it looked pretty nice on the football athletic director Christian Subdon presented to Sigmon after the game. The 13th-year head man became Whitehall's all-time leader in head coach victories with the win, his 86th.
"Honestly, my first
year here, I thought we were going to be the
greatest thing in the world and we were going to win everything the
first year because we were going to be revolutionary," Sigmon said. "I think that
bought us a 1-8 season. That's when I really realized we needed a lot of
help from a lot of people. The following year, we won nine games
because so many
people were willing to help put their name in our
program.
"It's kind of a surreal
moment because I get this nice football, but behind us is what it's all
about," he added, gesturing to the player celebration going on some 25 feet to his left.
