It is kind of funny how much shorter a long bus trip can be after a victory. I should know. Last year, after losing, unexpectedly, to Posen, the five-plus-hour bus ride home seemed to take absolutely forever.
Last week, after the Mid Peninsula Wolverines beat a very good Bellaire squad, 26-22, the drive back wasn't so tense and tedious.
As an assistant coach, my job isn't so much to determine game strategy or call plays from the sidelines. Instead, I do my best at coaching when I see mistakes, barking out reminders and substituting players when those on the field need a break. It's an interesting job, one that is sometimes stressful, and I wouldn't trade it for anything right now.
Especially on a Friday night, under the lights, when the game is close and the players are grappling for position in the trenches. There were plenty of those moments for me last week.
The Wolverines found themselves down on the third play of the game as a very speedy Bellaire back busted through the line, made a cutback and took off for the end zone to give his team a 6-0 lead. The Wolverines were able to tie it up on a run by Brett Branstrom, but it didn't last long as Bellaire added another score of their own to take a 14-6 lead.
In true Wolverine style, the boys from Mid Pen didn't give up. Heads didn't hang. They didn't throw their hands up in despair. And, honestly, they would have last season. This team, compared to a year ago with just a few new names on the roster, is a completely different group. They aren't individual players vying to get their name in the newspaper--they're Wolverines, one and all.
So Sam Lehtikangas, with 12 seconds left on the clock, races from his position at split end and cuts across the field in a full sprint to lay down a thundering block to clear Brett Branstrom for the score and to help make it a 14-12 contest going into the half.
And the tension was just beginning for the coaching staff. A scoreless third quarter that turned into a touchdown and a two-point conversion by Bellaire in the early minutes of the fourth greeted us as we came back to the game. But the Wolverines kept playing. And they kept scoring.
Chad Branstrom found daylight after snagging a pass to put in a score for us and Brett Branstrom added his third score of the game to help us secure the victory.
Our defense stopped Bellaire with just minutes left in the game and then we fumbled the ensuring punt to give them the ball back deep on our side of the field. But our defense was relentless and stopped the Eagles on a fourth down and one yard to go. We ran out the clock to secure the win.
And I wanted to cry.
Not because I was sad, of course, but because there was so much emotion and such a sudden release of tension. Joy flowed over us. Handshakes went around the sidelines.
Coach Jeremy Herman took a deep breath and smiled. It was his first smile since the game started, and it's rare to see him without one.
The whole team came to play. Great plays were made by Trey Branstrom, Ryan Lehtikangas, A.J. LaCosse, Wade Tryan, Zach LaFave and many more. But not a single individual was more important than anyone else, and it showed in the way they responded to one another. They were all Wolverines, and it was the Wolverines--as a whole--who won the game.
Afterwards, the coaches talked about how it was the perfect first game to have. We traveled five hours to get there, found ourselves playing in 80-some-degree heat, our quarterback was out for a full quarter, we fell behind several times and we gave our opponents all the momentum back at the end of the game with a muffed punt.
Perfect first game, you say? How so?
Through all of the adversity, the orange and white shone through and the Wolverines prevailed. If you can overcome those hurdles (and being picked to lose by 20 points in the local prediction forums), you can overcome almost anything, right? But that's the tenacity of the Wolverines.
We play at home tomorrow night at 7 p.m. against the Brimley Bays. They have a team that is packed full of large players and a very good coaching staff. We expect it to be a good game, but we also expect that if we play our best football we can win it. We are, after all, Wolverines.
Sam Eggleston is the managing editor of U.P. Second Wave. He was born and raised in the Upper Peninsula and graduated from Mid Peninsula High School in 1998. He can be reached via email.
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