MHSAA football playoffs: Belleville rolls Davison, 63-21, in Division 1 semifinal

After playing a close game in its season opener, two-time defending Division 1 champion Belleville made it 12 straight blowouts on Saturday.

Previously unbeaten Davison proved to be the latest victim on Saturday as the 13-0 Tigers earned their third straight trip to the state finals next Sunday with a 63-21 semifinal victory at Novi Stadium.

Belleville used a potent running attack to run its overall winning streak to 38 and are headed to Detroit’s Ford Field for the third straight year.

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Trailing 35-14 at half, Davison tried their best to make a game of it, getting a 34-yard TD passing play from Sawyer Glennie to Buddy Banks-Williams with 5:45 to go in the third quarter to cut the deficit to 35-21.

But the Tigers, getting a big fourth-and-2 tackle from Michigan commit Jeremiah Beasley at the Davison 31 with 11:04 left in the game, put it away on Colbey Reed’s 3-yard TD run followed by Reed’s third TD of the game on a 63-yarder with 6:51 left.

Belleville implemented the running clock with 4:56 to go on Bryce Underwood’s 17-yard TD pass to Trey Graham. Reed then added his fourth TD on a 40-yard TD with 1:15 left and finished the game with 228 yards on 13 carries.

As a team, Belleville had 313 net yards rushing. And for Reed, the last time he scored four TDs was in little league.

“The game plan was to run the ball, last week we had a quiet week running the ball and we wanted to establish the run game and that’s what we did today, and we came out and dominated,” the compact 5-foot-9, 210-pound Reed said.

Belleville also did it through the air with Underwood, the 6-foot-4, 215-pound junior who is one of the highest-rated recruits in the country, finishing 10 of 20 passing for 185 yards and three TDs.

To start the second quarter after being forced to punt, the Tigers – following a timeout – pulled some trickery as Beasley took the direct snap from center and ran 35 yards down to the Davison 26.

“It was my call,” Belleville coach Calvin Norman said of the fake punt. “I knew when we first had to punt, that I was going to go with the fake. I knew that.”

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And then on a third-and-23, Underwood hit Kevin Simes for a 23-yard TD pass to put Belleville up 21-7 with 8:14 to go in the half.

Davison responded with a nine-play, 63-yard drive behind the running of Carter Herriman and Hill, the latter who scored from 9 yards out to cut the deficit to 21-14 with 3:33 left.

But after Underwood’s 24-yard scramble for a first down on third-and-14 followed by a 41-yard pass to Jalen Johnson, the Tigers led 28-14 on Underwood’s 1-yard sneak with 54 seconds left.

Then disaster struck for the Cardinals as Glennie’s bubble screen pass was picked off by lineman Kristopher Easley, who returned it to the Davison 9-yard line with 34 seconds left.

“I did what my coach was telling me and retraced my steps, doing my assignments,” said the 235-pound Easley, who returned the interception 25 yards. “I actually was surprised. I didn’t think that would happen at all. What’s crazy this week is I actually had an interception on that same play. It basically wasn’t natural, but a blessing in the same way."

And that opened the door for a 35-14 lead at intermission following Beasley’s 5-yard TD run.

“The second half we go down and score and make it 35-21, but we just couldn’t overcome the mistakes that we made early in the game,” Davison coach Jake Weingartz said. “And again, they’re a really good football team, very well coached and a lot of really, really good football players, so hats off to them and super proud of kids for the season that they had.”

The Tigers scored on their first possession when Underwood hit Beasley out of the backfield as he eluded two Davison tacklers while sprinting down the sideline for a 66-yard TD and a 7-0 lead with 9:12 left in the opening quarter.

The Cardinals responded with a methodical 12-play, 86-yard TD drive capped by Herriman’s 6-yard TD run to make it 7-7 with 1:33 to go in the same period. The score was set up by Glennie’s 35-yard screen pass to Jalen Edwards.

“Davison did a lot of good things that we knew they were going to do,” Norman said. “They were trying to control the ball. We thought they were going to try and run some trick plays and they really never came out with the trick plays. They did a great job on establishing the run and we had to make some adjustments where we could slow them down with the run, and so I think we did that.”

But just 34 seconds later, Reed busted up the middle and went 75 yards for a TD to put the Tigers back on top 14-7 with just under a minute remaining in the quarter.

“It’s so good to see him be successful right now, to do what he did,” Norman said of Reed. “We always knew that – he’s been doing that the last two years. But to come out on this stage tonight and show that he’s one of the best running backs in the state, it’s just tremendous.”

Davison (21-1), the 2019 champion and 2020 runner-up, was making its fourth state semifinal appearance. But the Cardinals were outgained in total yardage, 498-253, and surrendered 14 points off turnovers.

“They are offensively pretty explosive,” Weingartz said of the Tigers. “They’ve got multiple guys on the field that can take it the distance for them at any time. But we made some uncharacteristic errors. It’s 21-14 with 48 seconds to go in the first half and they score to make it 28 and then we turn it over and they put another one on us."

Norman is Belleville’s third head coach in three years. He succeeded Dejuan Rogers, who guided the Tigers in the interim through their 2022 state title run after Jermain Crowell was suspended for two years by the MHSAA.

The Tigers will face Southfield (12-1), a 40-35 semifinal winner over West Bloomfield, in the finals while seeking their third straight state crown.

Their only close game this season was against River Rouge (35-28) way back on Aug. 25.

“This has been Belleville football since I got back here in 2019 and it’s never changed,” Norman said. “And I’d like to say I keep that same momentum, that same tempo because I know a lot of people – because of the staff that has left – that they thought we were going to go down some. But a lot of people don’t know I’ve been coaching for over 30 years. So, I knew what to do with the football team and the right kind of people to bring in so we could be successful.”

And for Easley, a senior who had a big interception, it’s another dream come true to be able to play at the Detroit Lions’ home indoor turf.

“Honestly, it’s amazing, I can’t lie to you,” Easley said. “I feel blessed.”

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Belleville rolls past Davison, 63-21, in Michigan Division 1 semifinal