Posen gets ground game back on track, fends off Hale in fourth
With the Mio game done and gone for another year, the next goal for the Viking football team was to win the rest of its games, clinch the fifth playoff berth in a row, and go from there. The first step toward accomplishing that would be a victory at Hale, which they earned, 36-22. The Eagles kept the game as close as head football coach Glenn Budnick thought they would.
?Honestly, I knew it was going to be a tough game,? Budnick said under the full moon on the Hale football field after the game. ?Hale is a very good football team. They run the ball well. Their quarterback can throw. They play solid defense. They just have been on the losing side of a couple of battles.? ?They? had Posen (6-1, 3-1) on the ropes in the second half, leading 15-14 early in the third quarter — and in the fourth quarter — it was anybody?s ball game. Only an insurance touchdown by senior Jesse Romel made the Viking fans, who traveled the 75 miles for the game, breathe a little easier.
?WE FOUGHT back and got fired up,? said Romel. ?We have a lot of heart. These kids want to play football and they come out even when they?re down.? If Hale had a break or two, or didn?t fumble the ball in the second half in crucial situations, the result could have been different, but when it came down to the key of the game, the Eagles couldn?t stop the Vikings? ground game, which compiled 354 yards. ?We made some adjustments offensively this week to assure that we were going to come out with a strong running game, and that?s what we went with, and it showed tonight on the field,? said Budnick.
Most of Hale?s yards came in the air. The Eagles had 151 yards passing, with half of that coming in the final quarter. ?The kids played tough in the end,? said Budnick. ?We had some big defensive stands. We didn?t capitalize on some of their turnovers like I thought we could have. But in the end, a win is what you want, and that?s what we got tonight.? The regular-season road winning streak is now 18. Next up will be Hillman, which won the battle of Montmorency County last Friday over Atlanta to improve its record to 2-5. The other victory for the Tigers came against Arenac Eastern who is o-fer two years. The combined record of Hillman?s victims is 1-13, but the Tigers, to their credit, have scored 50 points the last two weeks. Posen has defeated Hillman the last five years by a combined score of 220-34.
SENIOR RON KROLL, who led the Vikings with 194 yards rushing on 19 carries, and on defense with 15 tackles, scored the first points of the game on a 31-yard touchdown run. Sophomore Richie Kroll ran in the two-point conversion and the Vikes had the lead between quarters, 8-0. The Eagles, as they would most of the night, found a way to answer as they tied the score at eight on a passing play that Romel got a hand on but couldn?t get enough of to knock away, as the receiver stayed with the ball and hauled it in for the score. On Posen?s next drive, which was aided by a 15-yard run and an 11-yard pass reception by Richie Kroll, the Vikings drove the field.
Ron Kroll found a hole that the new Posen School sign would fit in and ran the ball in from 11 yards out. Once through the line, nobody was within five yards of him. That made the score 14-8 at the 7:19 mark of the second quarter and it would stay that way until halftime, although the Eagles would move the ball from its own 22 to inside the Posen 40. The drive was slowed by James Sobek, who sacked the quarterback, creating a third-and-16 situation.
HALE CAME out of the break, with the aid of a questionable pass interference call, and tossed a TD strike to tie the game at 14-14 with 10:32 left in the third. The kick after was good, and the home team had upset on their mind with a one-point lead. The lead didn?t stick as it took a little more than two minutes for the Vikes to move from their own 29 to the HHS 26. On third-and-one, junior quarterback Matt Ponik found sophomore Matt Szczerowski on the left side. Matt caught the ball and went in for the touchdown. The conversion failed. There was no letdown for the Eagles, who picked right up where they left off. As they crossed midfield and went into Posen territory, the crowd really started getting into the game for the first time as the Eagles continued ripping off double-digit yardage. The drive was halted as the ball popped loose and was recovered by Romel at the PHS 20. But Posen couldn?t capitalize.
A fourth-and-11 pass was mistakenly intercepted by a Hale defensive back who probably should have knocked it away. It was a break for the Vikings as the Eagles were backed up to the shadow of their own goaline. Hale didn?t get far before fumbling early in the fourth as Richie Kroll recovered at the 26-yard line, but the Vikings couldn?t get it in. The Eagles had a nice goaline stand and got the ball back on their own three.
THE P-TOWN defense stuffed Hale and forced the Eagles to punt at the back of their end zone. The ball went only 18 yards to the 21
The Vikings ground it out the rest of the way, capped off by the insurance TD by Romel, who ran for 150 yards in the game. Senior Craig Latz caught the conversion pass for the final points of the night. Ponik was four-for-11 for 53 yards.