Division 8 football final: Ubly avenges last year, beats Ottawa Lake Whiteford, 21-6

Seth Maurer made sure Ubly was finally able to cross the goal line – but it came with a twist.

Ottawa Lake-Whiteford’s Kolby Masserant was draped all over Maurer at the 2-yard line, but the Bearcats’ senior workhorse was able to rotate his body and break the plane into the end zone, giving Ubly its first touchdown 1:31 before halftime.

Brett Mueller’s extra point kick gave the Bearcats a slim lead, spurring them toward their first championship, 21-6, in the Division 8 football final Saturday morning at Ford Field.

“I just saw him coming and got ready for contact, lowered the shoulder, and just happened to spin perfectly and get into the end zone,” Maurer said. “My O-line does a fantastic job; they usually open up a lot of holes, but sometimes you have to fight for those yards, and that play was one of them.”

Masserant’s plunge was actually Ubly’s second stab at a score. Eight minutes into the game, quarterback Evan Peruski kept the ball on a fourth-and-goal from the 5, and following a key block from Maurer, was able to inch toward the goal line. Peruski also had Masserant draped all over him, and while Peruski fell forward into the end zone, replays showed his knee touched the turf short of the goal line.

As a result, Ubly turned the ball over on downs, and Whiteford traveled the 99 yards in 15 plays, taking a 6-0 lead when Tre Eitniear spotted Hunter DeBarr open in the right side of the end zone, for a 4-yard pass completion. A follow-up pass attempt on the conversion fell incomplete.

That turn of events didn’t get inside the heads of the Ubly players, though.

“On our first drive, we kept the ball eight minutes and came up a quarter-inch short, but that was a huge drive because it was body blow after body blow, and I think we wore them down,” Coach Eric Sweeney said. “(Their touchdown) didn’t bother us, because I still thought we were doing pretty good offensively. They hadn’t stopped us. We’ve been down a lot this year, so I don’t think it fazed the kids. I know it didn’t faze us as coaches.”

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Saturday’s game was the only one of the weekend which featured a rematch of the 2022 final (won 26-20 by Whiteford), and the only game between a pair of previously unbeaten teams.

The contest also spotlighted a pair of schools with similar powerhouse ground-and-pound, time-consuming offensive attacks, rarely throwing only when necessary or when attempting to catch defenses off-guard. Entering Saturday’s final, Ubly (14-0) had piled up 4,419 rushing yards while Whiteford (13-1) had run for 3,546.

But one of those throws was needed for Ubly to tack on a second touchdown late in the third quarter. Facing fourth-and-7 from Whiteford's 11, Peruski rolled out right and connected with tight end Ryan Learman in the end zone, building a 14-6 lead 2:14 before the end of the quarter.

Ubly had gotten the ball back after stopping Whiteford at midfield on the Bobcats’ first possession of the second half — with Evan Peruski, Skyler Smith, Luke Volmering and Canden Peruski bottling up Jake Iott on a fourth-and-2. It took the Bearcats 11 plays and 5:36 to travel the 50 yards back to the end zone.

The next Whiteford possession also stalled out near midfield, and Ubly’s Mitchell Foote got a hand on the Bobcats’ punt, which enabled Ubly to start its next drive at their own 40. Nine plays later, Volmering carried the ball into the end zone on a three-yard off-tackle jaunt to put the Bearcats up by two scores with 6:13 to play.

Ubly had 310 yards in total offense, yet no play went for longer than 20 yards (an Evan Peruski quarterback keeper on the first drive). All but 29 of Ubly’s yards came on the ground, with Maurer leading the way by picking up 138 on 27 carries.

"Our whole thing was we wanted to keep that clock running,” Sweeney said. “That’s our style of play, that’s what we’ve morphed into. We figured out that that’s really our best way of playing football, to get those three or four yards. If you get three yards a carry, you’re getting that first down on a fourth down.”

The three extra points gave Mueller 219 for his career, which will top the state record books.

It was the first state championship for Ubly in its fourth visit to Ford Field. The Bearcats were finalists in 2022 and 2020 in Division 8, and 2008 in Division 7.

“We’d never beaten a double-wing offense,” Evan Peruski said. “In 2019 we lost to Beal City; in my freshman year, we lost to Centerville; my sophomore year, we lost to Beal City (in the semifinal); we lost to Whiteford (last year) with a double-wing. Coming in we knew it was going to be a challenge and we knew it had to be all hands on deck. Just to see us all come together and finally get it done feels amazing.”

Adding to that feeling was that it was Sweeney’s last game as coach.

“Actually I made the decision when we were here last year,” he said. “I told the kids that next year is my last year, I tried to forget that I said it, but we decided to give it one more shot – I’ll come back one more year and I’ll be done. I’ve never hidden it and maybe it was a little bit of a rallying cry for the kids, but it was just unbelievable.”

Sweeney finishes his career with a 4-year record of 48-5, after serving as an assistant with the program.

“I’m more of a fan than I am a coach,” he said. “In Ubly, we’ve had a great 20 years. We’ve been so close so many times. We’ve won 10 regionals in the last 20 years, but we kept hearing, ‘You haven’t won the big one, you haven’t won the big one.’ Well, now we’ve won the big one.”

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: MHSAA Division 8 football final: Ubly beats Ottawa Lake Whiteford, 21-6