PREP SCOREBOARD
Berkley 17
Farmington 7
N. Farmington
44 Lake Orion 22
W. Bloomfield 30
Oak Park 12
ND Prep 49
Detroit Ford 6
ROCHESTER >> If the Stoney Creek Cougars had let a rivalry win get away, they’d have been kicking themselves for a while.
Luckily, they didn’t have to. Despite dominating defensively, and controlling the game nearly from the start, the Cougars didn’t put the game away when they had a chance, and the Rochester Falcons took advantage, tying it at 7-7 with 4:51 left.
But the Cougars responded by driving the field for the gamewinning score, getting it with 41 seconds left when Jacob Best burrowed his way in for the score from the 2-yard line. Four defensive plays sealed a 14-7 win.
“Man, it feels great. You know, we worked so hard in this offseason and we’ve been preparing for moments like this all season, you know? We prepared for it. We’re ready,” Best said. “We’re confident in ourselves, through all these situations, all the time. Ready for anything, you know?”
The Cougars (2-0) could’ve put the game away, driving inside the Rochester 20 twice in the third quarter, only to turn it over on downs. That nearly came back to bite them when Alex Bueno drove the Falcons (11) down for a score in the fourth, hitting Preston Schroyer with a 19-yard scoring pass to tie it up at 7-7 after the PAT.
“We have to go finish drives in the red zone. That’s unacceptable,” Stoney Creek coach Nick Merlo said. “I’m really proud of how we responded to everything. There was a lot of adversity. There’s some big, big things that happened that we could have just said ‘Oh, woe is me,’ but we didn’t. But that’s what the culture is about. That’s what our culture is about, even though we’re young in this group, we still believe in the culture fully, and they’re invested in it. I’m really, really proud of them.”
Jon Fogler caught a 26-yard screen pass to convert a thirdand-16 on the game-winning drive, then ripped off 30 yards on a third-and-4 to set the Cougars up on the doorstep. Two plays later, Best punched it in.
“We believe so much our kids. We put years worth of work in, to do things like that. Jacob Best played phenomenal tonight, made great decisions, took care
of the football, made some really big time throws, ran the ball tough for us. I mean, Jacob really played awesome tonight,” Merlo said of Best, who was 6-for13 passing for 95 yards, including a 28-yard scoring pass to Sam McDermott in the second quarter to establish the 7-0 lead. “Our defense was fantastic. Right? You know, and both teams played really hard as a good as a great game and just really proud of our young men, our coaching staff.”
The Stoney defense harassed Bueno most of the night, sacking him a handful of times.
Defensive end Ben Korson had three of the sacks, including one right before the half that kept the Falcons from tying it up then.
“Just not letting them get a pass off. That’s really helpful for our defense,” Korson said. “It’s really important. It’s just incredible how good it is to just stop them in the backfield, and not allow them to get a chance of gaining any yards.”
Korson had a seconddown sack on Rochester’s final drive, as well, then Emilio Villafuerte-Esparza and Kevin Sloan combined on a fourth-down sack to end Rochester’s hopes.
“Korson’s playing defensive line for us. Really proud of him. It’s a position change for him and he’s very selfless, to go down from being a running back/receiver type kid to play defense line for us. He played really, really well tonight,” Merlo said. “Big time players make big time plays big time games. I think that we did that.”
The Stoney defense ended up holding Rochester without any net rushing yards, the lack of a running game allowing the Cougars to tee off on the pass rush.
“Yeah, we really struggled running the ball, we just weren’t very physical off the line, I don’t think that was not good. It’s hard, when you don’t run the ball to get things going. But you know, we, there are a few series where we drove down and we get inside the 20. And we’d fumble or we would do something — just a missed assignment here or there. We just weren’t very disciplined in some of those aspects. So we did some things good. But it’s hard to win when you can’t run the ball,” Rochester coach Erik Vernon said. “It was hard in the running game, it was hard to get a little momentum going we then we get a couple of good runs, then we’d have a penalty, we get a holding call and it was just we couldn’t put a couple of good running plays together and then we kind of just scrapped it all together. But then they could just tee off on him (Bueno).”
Even without the balanced offense, Bueno was still 15-for-29 passing for 169 yards, moving the ball when the Falcons went to more of a hurry-up mode just before the half, and again on the game-tying drive in the fourth.
“Our defense played their hearts out that whole game. I mean, they got some really good ballplayers over there, a good line, and our kids did a great job on the defense side of the ball. And they kept us in it and you know,” Vernon said. “We have weapons and I think we have guys that can make plays. It’s just you know, we just got to kinda be able to get a little bit of a flow going. We had a hard time with that. And that’s a credit,100 percent, to Stoney, their defense and coaching staff.”