Napoleon, MI. – The Pirates’ varsity football team played host to the Montague Wildcats on a sunny, warm Friday night and held them off for the big victory in a back-and-forth battle. The Wildcats took an early lead as Max Dyer ran down the right sideline for the Wildcats’ score. At the 5:44 mark, Junior Nolan Kirsch scored for the Pirates, but the two-point conversion was no good.
On the ensuing kickoff, the Wildcats’ Cole Moss picked up the ball and ran about 60 yards for the score. But the Pirates came right back with a score when Jayson Dotson took the ball in from 13 yards out near the end of the first quarter. The two-point conversion was good, tying the game 14-14 after the first quarter.
The Wildcats took the lead back on the second play of the second quarter as quarterback Max Dyer hit Levi Auger for a big 31-yard touchdown pass. With a little over 4 minutes left in the second quarter, Nolan Kirsch ran the ball in for the Pirates, and Carson Warner picked up the two-point conversion to put the Pirates up 22-21 at the half.
Warner scored in the third quarter to extend the Pirates’ lead. With 4 minutes left in the third, it was the Wildcats Dyer hitting Auger again for a 40-yard touchdown pass, cutting the Pirates’ lead to 30-28. In the fourth, the Pirates scored early and converted the 2-point conversion to put them up 38-28. Three minutes later, Montague cut into the lead as they scored again with Dyer running it for his second score of the night. But the Pirates weren’t done and were not going to let the Wildcats get any closer as Kirsch ran the ball in down the right sideline 27 yards, and with the big two-point conversion, it gave the Pirates a big 46-35 lead.
On the ensuing kickoff, the Wildcats misplayed the ball as it went the legal 10 yards, and they were unable to down it as it bounced off one of their defenders, and the ball was recovered by the Pirates, who were able to hold the ball and run the clock out for the big victory.
The Pirates’ offensive line did an outstanding job helping lead the way for their ball carriers to gain 356 yards on the ground, which is almost unheard of in High School football. They opened the way for the 6 touchdowns scored and 5 of 6 two-point conversions to be made. The Pirates’ offense mainly used a Wing-T formation and was able to move the ball, gaining about 4 yards a carry.
The Pirates’ defense came up very big, making some great stops, and sophomore Halston Snellenberger made several big stops as he played on both sides of the ball throughout the entire game. Snellenberger just set the Napoleon school weightlifting record recently with a 545 squat.
The Pirates will travel to Grass Lake Thursday the third with kickoff against the Warriors, who fell to Adrian Madison 43-34, at 7 P.M.
