Bronson falls at Summerfield by slimmest of margins
PETERSBURG – Bronson needed one final drive in the fourth quarter of Friday afternoon’s non-league football game against Petersburg-Summerfield but kept coming up short.
The Vikings lost 9-8 in a game that started Thursday but had to be finished Friday afternoon due to a power outage in Petersburg.
“I’m really proud of the guys,” Bronson head coach Jake Miller said. “It’s tough to start over like that.”
When play resumed Friday, Summerfield’s offense put together a strong drive and got inside the Bronson five-yard line, but the Vikings held.
After a scoreless third quarter, the Bulldogs went ahead early in the fourth quarter on a 27-yard field goal, meaning the Vikings had to score twice.
Bronson responded out with a new look formation on its next drive, led by fullback Seth Withington, who took a direct snap several plays in a row to get the Vikings past midfield. Finally, Aiden Whittaker, who was also in the Vikings backfield, took a direct snap and ran right through the Summerfield defense for a 45-yard touchdown. Withington made the two-point conversion to pull the Vikings within one with more than eight minutes left in the game.
“We started the game over,” Miller said. “We were able to look at some things on film. We knew we could do a couple of things that we thought could put them in a bad spot, including that formation.
“We scored with eight or nine minutes left and it looked pretty good. The momentum definitely flipped.”
Summerfield turned the ball over to Bronson on its next drive, on a fumble picked up by Vikings defensive lineman Dylan Lilly.
The Bulldogs defense stiffened, however, giving the offense the ball back. Bronson used its timeouts and had another attempt at a go-ahead drive but Summerfield defensive back Eli Van Huysen came up and made two big plays in the Bronson backfield to turn the ball over on downs.
When Bronson did get the ball back inside of a minute to play in the game, Hayden Noland picked off a pass, sealing the victory.
Miller said he had to shift several players around both Thursday and Friday due to players being sick.
“We have some guys dinged up,” Miller said. “It’s kind of like non-stop rotation of players, so its hard to sustain drives after we make a big score. It got weird at the end. We’re not deep enough to have guys come out and go back in. It gets us out of the flow.”
Miller said he’ll have to check the film but was surprised how the Vikings offense sputtered after looking so well on that one long drive.
“I don’t know how you can go from scoring on a drive to not being able to move the ball,” he said. “I can’t believe they could make an adjustment fast enough.”
Adrian 51, Three Rivers 30
Three Rivers fell to 0-2 on the season with a 51-30 loss to Adrian on Thursday.
The Maples scored points in all four quarters, including 21 in the second. This gave them a 28-8 lead at halftime.
Three Rivers got three touchdown passes from Caleb Quake, he pitched it for 19 completions on 35 attemps for 235 yards. Drew McClain led the rushing attack with 64 yards on nine carries.
Luis Warmack hauled in seven passes, including a pair of touchdown grabs, for 64 yards. McClain caught the other touchdown from Quake and finished with 63 yards on four grabs.
This article originally appeared on Sturgis Journal: Bronson falls at Summerfield by slimmest of margins
