Groves blanks Avondale, gets Seaholm rematch
Sometimes, before you can get payback, you need to catch a break or two.
The Birmingham Groves Falcons recovered a pair of fumbles in the first seven minutes of Friday’s Division 2 playoff opener at Auburn Hills Avondale’s Dick Bye Field, converting them into easy points, and never let up, rolling to a 36- 0 win.
It advances Groves to the district semifinals, where they’ll face cross-town rival Birmingham Seaholm, with a chance at a little revenge for a Week 4 loss at the hands of the Maples.
Seaholm (5-2) was a 42- 6 winner over Sterling Heights Friday night, setting up a third straight postseason meeting between the two rivals.
“To say we wanted this one bad … is an understatement,” longtime Groves coach Brendan Flaherty said of the rematch in the postgame celebration with his team.
Just from the way the Falcons (4- 3) were fighting through tackles to get every inch on Friday, you could tell they wanted to get past the Yellowjackets (3- 4) pretty badly, too.
Groves fizzled on its first drive, but the ensuing punt was downed at the Avondale 1, and two plays later, the Falcons had the ball back after a fumble. Stavros Panos quickly converted it into a touchdown from 4 yards out one play after the change of possession.
Another fumble on Avondale’s ensuing possession set up Groves at the Yellow
jacket 41, and Kaleb Garner went deep on first down, hitting Jaden Mangham with a touchdown bomb, then running in the 2-point conversion after a pair of penalties put the ball closer.
“I think we stumbled on our feet on our opening drive, and jeez, that’s probably our worst drive of the night. That’s frustrating, but the defense came up there. Jason Wilson and Brian Hafner, our defensive coordinators have been putting together a plan — they’ve been a little bit frustrated — but we’re finally putting some stuff together,” Flaherty said. “The thing about it is, in this game — because I think they’re a pretty good team; they’ve got some good players and a good young coach — but we’ve been like snakebit. When the ball’s on the
ground, we like haven’t gotten any of them. Finally, we got some breaks to go our way, which was good.”
It wasn’t as good on the other sideline.
With 5:13 left in the first quarter, Avondale — trying to win its first playoff games since 2012 — was down 150, and had only run six plays.
“All the credit to coach Flaherty and Birmingham Groves. I mean, they worked hard, and we needed to come out and execute at the highest level, and we failed to do so. When you’re shooting yourselves in the foot, AND you’re playing a good team, it is hard to come back from that,” Avondale coach Corey Bell said. “Coming out and turning the ball over like we did, we gotta respond to adversity. That’s what we preached all year, and these kids have done such a good job all season of responding to adversity, and fighting back. We just ran into a better team this week.”
Johnny Rex scored on a 3-yard touchdown run two plays into the second quarter to make it a 22- 0 Groves lead after the PAT, then finished off the Falcons’ next drive with a 10-yard touchdown run to make it 29- 0.
Garner capped off Groves’ first possession of the second half with a 2-yard quarterback sneak for a score, the 36- 0 margin starting the mercy rule’s running clock.
To that point, Groves had scored on five of its seven possessions — the lone exceptions being the first drive, and one that petered out at the Avondale 34 with 17.2 seconds left in the first half.
That drive included one of three touchdowns that the Falcons had called back on the night because of penalties — two negated TD passes to Mangham, and an erased 63-yard scoring run by Panos.
The other two times, the Falcons overcame the setback to score on the drive, anyway.
“I think some of that stuff, too, is a good test of your patience and composure.
“OK, we got through it, and it worked out OK. I liked how the guys didn’t implode, and they were just like ‘OK, we got the next one,’” Flaherty said. “Sometimes that’s a blessing in disguise.”
Now comes the rematch with Seaholm.