Brother Rice unable to counter Chelsea’s pressure in 23-0 loss
CHELSEA » Pressure is a privilege … but also a necessity.
And it makes all the difference in the world, when you can get it.
A week after being unable to get pressure on a South Lyon East offense that put up 44 points in a shootout win in the district semifinals, the Chelsea defense ratcheted up the pressure in Friday’s district title game, stifling Birmingham Brother Rice in a 23- 0 win.
Chelsea (9- 0) sacked Brother Rice quarterback Jake Coulter five times, and held the Warriors (7-2) to just 156 total yards of offense, shutting out Brother Rice for the first time in 25 games.
If it wasn’t the pressure, it was the penalties that were holding back a Rice offense that just could never break loose a big play.
“A lot. Every time you’re chasing the chains, you look over there, and it’s second-and-16, or third-and-whatever. We just gotta get the ball out sooner. Some of that is we were out of synch, and out of sorts, and some of that is just some youth,” Rice coach Adam Korzeniewski said.
“They had some to do with it, too. Give them credit. … They kicked our butt.”
The Bulldogs move on to host next week’s regional final against Flint Kearsley (6-3), a 36-28 winner over Linden in its own district final.
The Warriors finished the season in the district finals for the fourth time in five years, but considering where we all were, expectations-wise, three months ago, having played a full nine games was still in itself a bit of satisfaction.
“We talked about that,” Korzeniewski said. “We’re a school that’s in session five days a week, in person. For these kids to have been as diligent as they have been with everything, with everything that’s happened this year — for these kids to even have these memories, just to play, even if it’s a loss, I couldn’t be happier for them.”
Chelsea advances to the regional round for the fourth time in five seasons, but it needed to clean up some things after nearly allowing South Lyon East to come from behind and pull out a road win a week ago.
The pressure was the difference.
“That was huge. Last week, that kid (East’s Zander Desentz) had all day to throw, and that was just kind of a point of emphasis this week in practice. Just getting better, techniquewise, and just understanding to play with relentless effort. You don’t need to play every play. Go hard for
two, and we’ve got somebody else that can come in. We rotate eight, nine guys on the defensive line, and that’s part of it. Last week, we were getting gassed — this week, they were kind of able to understand ‘Go hard, and then, hey, somebody else is coming in to take my place.’ Relentless effort up front. Just didn’t ever let them get comfortable, which is a huge part of what we’re trying to do. They weren’t able to run the ball, so when it’s one side of the ball, when you’re just throwing it, our defense can just kind of lick their chops and just get after it,” Chelsea coach Josh Lucas said, giving his defensive staff credit for making the adjustments in the week in between.
“We just had a lot of mental mistakes on defense last week, that’s all it was. We weren’t aligning right, we weren’t doing the things that we do. We kind of felt the pressure during the game, and the momentum swing, and our kids kind of lost control a little bit on the defensive side of the ball. We knew that this is what this defense was capable of doing. They’ve done that for many years here. Coach (Grant) Fanning and his staff, his Dstaff, is the best staff in the state, and to give up, what? To give up 44 last week, and to shut out Rice to zero, after they scored 30- some last week, that’s a heck of a job by those guys.”
The Bulldogs held the Warriors to just 6 rushing
yards — after taking away sack yardage — but some of that was self-inflicted, as Rice had just one rushing play in the second half. That contributed to the Warriors having the ball for just 2:36 of the third quarter, and just eight plays.
“We got away from the run game. I think we could’ve stuck with that a little longer,” Korzeniewski said. “With any defense, there’s things they’re going to give you, and we could’ve done a better job of (going after) that. South Lyon East did that.”
The Bulldogs didn’t stack up a ton of yardage themselves — just 197 total yards, 119 of that on the ground — but were opportunistic, and held onto the ball. Chelsea had scoring
drives of seven, seven, 11 and two plays.
It was the last in that list that helped put Rice in a hole early.
Af ter Chelsea took the opening kickoff and marched down the field to take a 7- 0 lead on a 4-yard swing pass to Trenton Hill, the score stayed that way until midway through the second quarter. On a second- and-10 play, Carson Gray sacked Coulter and stripped the ball away, and Berrien recovered on the Rice 4-yard line. Two plays later, Hill punched it in from 1 yard out to make it 14- 0.
Rice had a chance to cut into the lead with a drive at the end of the half, but ran out of time at the Chelsea 35, then went three- and
out after taking the second-half kickoff. The Bulldogs answered with a 26yard scoring pass-and-run from Griffen Murphy to Joe Taylor, but the PAT missed after it was pushed back by penalty, leaving it 20- 0. After another Rice three-andout, the Bulldogs ground the rest of the time off the clock in the third quarter, adding a 23-yard field goal by Nicholas Fisk three plays into the fourth to make it 23- 0.
The Warriors moved the ball with a hurry- up offense on their final drive, but it stalled at the Chelsea 49 with 2:01 left, and Rice punted it away, allowing the Bulldogs to kneel out the victory. Coulter finished 18 of 26 passing for 150 yards.