Late heroics deliver Montague football stunning win over Oakridge

MONTAGUE — Not many teams would have tried to score in a tie game with 89 yards to the end zone and just over a minute left. The conservative call is to try not to screw up and take your chances in overtime.

But then, most teams aren't Montague, and they don't have Cole Moss and Max Dyer.

On Montague's final drive in Friday's West Michigan Conference Lakes battle against Oakridge, Moss ripped off a 13-yard gain - he was tripped up by the last Oakridge Eagle who could've stopped him from scoring - and Dyer then launched a perfect deep pass that Levi Auger caught in stride and took the rest of the way for a thrilling touchdown that delivered the Wildcats a badly needed 34-28 win.

Through two weeks, a lot had gone wrong for the 'Cats in losses to Napoleon and Hart, most notably the defense being unable to get off the field. Coach Phil Koops said the two opponents ran 131 plays against Montague to the Wildcats' 47. The defense, though, struck a key blow early when Dane Roesler seized a tipped pass and raced about 30 yards for a touchdown just a few plays into the game.

"There's nothing like that to start off a game," Roesler said. "The second or third play, whatever it was, to start off with the pick-six, that's the biggest uplift to a team ever. We never let up on defense all night."

That's not to say Montague (1-2, 1-1 WMC Lakes) suddenly became a shutdown defense. The Eagles had their share of success with running back Taiden Patton and quarterback Jacob Randall. But the Wildcats got that pick-six; they got a stop to start the second half; and they recovered a fumble in the fourth quarter with the game tied. And when the Wildcats fumbled it right back, the defense stepped up and forced a punt - a good one that bounced to the Montague 11-yard line. As it turned out, that just made the Wildcats' win even more dramatic.

It might never have happened, though, if not for several huge plays by Moss. He scored Montague's second touchdown, getting wide open and collecting Dyer's pass off a play-action fake for a 32-yard score. He also ripped off a 51-yard touchdown catch to start the third quarter, dodging and powering through Eagle tacklers. He had another score called back by penalty. 

His biggest play came in the fourth quarter, after the Eagles seemingly had broken the Wildcats' back by picking off a pass and using the short field to power in their second touchdown in just over a minute, going from down 20-14 into a 28-20 lead.

Montague needed a response, and Moss delivered, immediately racing downfield for a 64-yard touchdown. He also ran in the two-pointer to tie it.

Moss fumbled the ball away on Montague's next possession, which only stoked his motivation to redeem himself when the Wildcats were able to get the ball back. He told his team he'd go win the game - and he nearly did on his 13-yard run.

The threat of him getting the ball again was enough for Oakridge to bite when Montague showed the same formation. That freed up Auger to beat his man downfield and reel in a perfect in-stride pass from Dyer.

"When we ran toss, sometimes their corners came crashing down, and their corner was nose to nose with me," Moss said of the key play. "Levi Auger is just as fast, if not faster, than me. He's just as dangerous. Our quarterback, he's young, but he throws a great ball."

It was sweet redemption for Dyer after the interception - and a sign of what's to come for the sophomore.

"He's definitely the best young quarterback out there," Roesler said. "You see other sophomore quarterbacks, they're not doing anything like that. This dude can run the ball. He opened up the season with, I think, one or two touchdowns against Napoleon. He came back against Hart with more touchdowns. There's nobody in West Michigan that's a sophomore putting up those numbers....He runs that offense so perfectly. All my faith in that guy."

One trait Montague displayed in its repeated responses to trouble Friday was resilience, and it's one coach Phil Koops admires.

"We don't have a perfect group. Nobody does," Koops said. "We're running around with six seniors, and we've got a bunch of young kids out there playing, but they just kept playing hard. We did some dumb stuff. I was screaming at some kids about hitting people behind the ball, getting a personal foul...but they just kept playing.

"The catch-22 of coaching is, how do you give kids the confidence to have success before they've actually had the success? That's what we're all trying to figure out. In the first two weeks, it didn't quite happen. We kept working. The kids kept working and we got one tonight. I'm very excited for our kids, our community, our coaching staff."