Posen seeking first win against Rogers City since 1981 after dropping opener

Turnovers at the worst possible times have put Posen in a season-opening 0-1 hole with Rogers City coming to town for the first home game of the season, Friday at 7 p.m. Posen had an uncharacteristic four turnovers in an 8-0 loss at Cedarville and junior quarterback Jason Romel was sacked four times. ?You can?t turn the ball over four times,? said coach Glenn Budnick, who had won the last five season-opening games against Cedarville. ?Every time you do that, you give the other team another possession. You just can?t do that at this level. We didn?t take care of the football tonight. We are usually very good at doing that.?

The turnovers all occurred when Posen was moving the ball and was starting to get some momentum. The Vikings? best drive of the game occurred as time was expiring in the first half. Sophomore halfback Josh Worthington found some running room on the left side and clipped off runs of eight, 11, and 10 yards.

EVENTUALLY POSEN got the ball inside the 10-yard line with less than a minute left before halftime. The scoring chance ended when Romel was stripped of the ball on a quarterback sack. The score remained 0-0 at halftime. Posen got the ball to start the second half but went four and out. Cedarville started its only scoring drive of the night on its first possession of the second half, starting from its own 43. The drive was capped by a three-yard touchdown run by Gary Kott, one of two players from De Tour. Cedarville and De Tour are operating a cooperative program and the two players from De Tour made great contributions in the win.

The touchdown and two-point conversion at the 5:44 mark, seemed to light a fire under the Posen offense. The line was creating holes and Kroll was running down hill when the Vikings got the ball back. The drive continued to the Cedarville 30, when at the end of a running play, the ball was fumbled and recovered by the home team. ?We had a drive going and all of a sudden a turnover happened and they got the ball. It was blown assignments,? said Budnick.

CEDARVILLE MOVED the ball past midfield, but a holding penalty and a terrific defensive play by Greg Donajkowski forced the Trojans to punt. The ball was booted to the Posen 24 where the Viking offense went to work again, getting a couple of first downs before fumbling the ball away at the end of a long run at midfield. The Viking defense rose to the occasion and came up with yet another stop on a fourth-and-short situation at the Posen 40. Posen spun its wheels until a third-and-10 pass play. Matt Szczerowski caught the first ball thrown his way for five yards. Then, on the next play, Kroll rushed the ball for six yards to get the first down and keep the drive going with 5:30 left in the fourth.

A little more than a minute later, under a heavy rush, an errant Posen pass was intercepted. In looking at the tape of the game, Budnick said the offensive line did not sustain its blocks to keep the defenders out of the backfield. Cedarville had a chance to put the game away, but the Viking defense forced the Trojans to punt again. The ball went into the end zone with 2:23 left and Posen needed to move the ball 80 yards for a touchdown and a two-point conversion to tie the game. A 25-yard pass play from Romel to Szczerowski and two first down runs by Worthington got the ball into Cedarville territory with less than a minute, but with 27.9 seconds left, Romel was brought down on Cedarville?s fourth sack of the night, ending Posen?s last chance at a score.

?I WAS JUST talking with the guys,? Budnick said of the post game meeting with his team. ?It?s not one guy on this team, it was everybody on this team. Everybody missed a block, everybody didn?t wrap up on a tackle, so it?s the little things that add up to one big thing, and that was the 8-0 loss. ?They put a lot of pr

essure on. They were blitzing all night and doing some good stunts. We have to learn to pick that up.? Cedarville?s offense had only 32 more yards of rushing, but the rest of the stats were fairly similar. Posen had 194 rushing yards, 30 passing, while Cedarville threw the ball for 29 yards and rushed for 226. Kroll led the Posen rushing attack with 100 yards on 21 carries. The Trojans? Justin Baker was 20-for-134 yards. Jordan Hincka led the defense with 13 tackles, while Levi Burgess had 12 tackles and a fumble recovery. Richie Kroll had nine tackles. Also recovering fumbles were Josh Worthington and Donajkowski.

?A loss is never easy,? Budnick said. ?It?s the first time we?ve lost up here in six years. As I told these guys, the true character of this team will be how they bounce back next week against Rogers City.? Kott had two sacks and 12 tackles in Cedarville?s first win over Posen since a ball game in 1999 that ended with a similar score.