WALLED LAKE — There was no fear in the Pinckney football team of Walled Lake Western going into Friday’s district football championship at Western.
After the Warriors scored on the opening drive, the Pirates defense clamped down and the Warriors led at the half 7-0.
On the first play of the second half, Western QB Johnny Tracy saw the ball snapped over his head, and by the time he retrieved it, he was in the end zone for a safety.
“Once we say him land in the end zone, the sideline went crazy,” Pinckney senior Dolyn Meinecke said. “That’s when we kind of knew, OK, we have a chance in this.”
Western coach Mike Zdebski, on the other hand, felt a sense of foreboding.
“Lately, they’ve been a second-half team,” he said. “And I was thinking, ‘Here we go.’ They get a safety, they get great field position, and I’m thinking this is their type of game.”
But the Pirates drive ended with a blocked field goal. The Warriors drove for a touchdown on that drive, then, after a 65-yard pass from Jack Wurzer to Nick Cain to make it 14-9, Western got going.
On second-and-5, Tracy threw to Kameron Ford, who stopped the ball with his right hand, then snagged it midair with his left and streaked 75 yards for a touchdown.
“The ball was almost overthrown,” Pinckney coach Jakob Gailitis said. “But the kid’s a heck of a football player, and he made the play.”
Two plays later, Western’s Jack Dodge intercepted a Wurzer pass and returned it 40 yards for a score, and the Warriors never looked back, winning 41-16.
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“That was tough,” Gailitis said of the sequence. “It totally swung the game against us.”
Western (10-1) will take on Fenton (9-2) in next week’s regional final at Walled Lake Western.
It was a night for quarterbacks, because neither defense was allowing much on the ground. Western had a total of 58 yards rushing, much of it in the fourth quarter, while Pinckey was held to 42 yards on the ground.
In the passing battle, Western had the distinct advantage. Tracy threw for 266 yards and two scores, while Wurzer threw for 240 yards and a pair of touchdowns, but also was picked off four times by the Warriors.
In the first half, after the first drive, Tracy had trouble setting up to pass because of Pinckney’s Wes Smith, who was seemingly everywhere.
The reason, Zdebski said, was simple.
“Just trying to get our tailbacks to block who they’re supposed to block,” he said. “When they don’t execute their assignments (Smith() plays like he’s been playing. He had a great year.”
The game got a little contentious late, when Tracy hit Ford for a 31-yard touchdown pass with 1:24 remaining. An enraged Gailitis took several steps onto the field and yelled his displeasure at the Western bench.
Asked if the touchdown was salt in the wound, he said later, “a little bit. But it is what it is. We’re going to move on.”
The Pirates marched down the field on their next possession, scoring on a 3-yard touchdown pass from Wurzer to George Petty for their last score of the season.
“We fought as hard as we could,” Smith said. “We sure did. We wanted to get as far as we could. … Obviously, we’d have liked to keep going, but we’re very happy with how the season turned out.”
Smith, Meinecke and Petty, all seniors, lingered on the field after their teammates left, trying to postpone the inevitable.
“It’s tough, being my senior season,,” Meinecke said before the trio eventually walked off the field together. “It’s hard, but I have absolutely no fregrets about this season. I love my boys. They made my senior season the best I could have imagined.”
