SOUTH LYON TAKES CONTROL OF LVC
Lions top Lakeland 49-35 on the road
WHITE LAKE » If this is a ‘revenge tour’ for South Lyon, for the perceived snub of not being ranked highly enough, it’s certainly going well enough so far — even if Friday’s win wasn’t exactly surgical in its execution.
The No. 4-ranked Lions remained undefeated with a 49-35 road win over previously unbeaten Lakeland, taking over sole possession of first place in the Lakes Valley Conference — but boy was it not as easy as that might sound.
“It makes us feel great. I mean, but we’re not satisfied. All right, we got a chip on our shoulder. We were ranked 96 coming into the year. I mean, we’re gonna still grind. I mean, that’s what we do,” said Quinn Fracassi, who opened the game with a kickoff return for a touchdown, and added an interception and two receiving touchdowns as the game progressed. “We think we got a big chip on our shoulder that’s gonna lead us to further in the playoffs and in the LVC. I mean, we’re on top.”
The Lions (5-0, 4-0 LVC) won a third straight meeting against Lakeland (4-1, 4-1) — the two teams didn’t meet in 2020 — but haven’t felt like they’ve gotten the credit they’ve deserved over the last few seasons.
They’ve taken that out on their opponents so far this season, scoring 44 or more points in every game but the 31-7 Week 4 win over Detroit Country Day.
But Fracassi’s opening kickoff return certainly settled the stomach of coach Jeff Henson, who wasn’t sure what to expect from his team, considering the week they’d had.
“I honestly didn’t know what to expect because … we didn’t have a full practice until Thursday, you know, battling everything that we did, and then you throw the, the monsoon rain that we had for three days and all that so, so I know we’re fortunate, very lucky to get out of here and you know, happy that we’re 5-0 right now,” said Henson, who had players in and out of practice all week with head colds.
“A mess. This whole week has been a challenge for us. And you know, first of all, I mean, they’re really good football team. I mean, they really are. I mean, their coaches do a great job. And obviously, the (Tate) Farquhar kid is, you know, he’s as advertised, He’s really good. You know, I thought we made some plays, you know, obviously, throughout the game, but we were our own worst enemy at times. And, you know, it showed, you know, obviously, with the score and the points that we gave them and but, you know, this has been a challenging week for us to say the least. … I mean, it showed I mean, obviously we our kids cramping and you know, the knucklehead plays that we made in the mistakes that were made, it was evident because of the way our week went, but you know, hey, you know, our kids battled and fought to the end and got that we got the win.”
The Eagles tied the game at 7-7, and later again at 21-21, but South Lyon went into halftime with a two-touchdown lead
and — despite a stretch in the third quarter, where that hectic week’s impact showed up — stretched the lead out to 49-28 with a little less than nine minutes to play in the game.
Dawson Skupin threw for 325 yards and four scores, and ran for 109 yards and another touchdown in the win, but didn’t get to savor the kneel down at the end, taking a hard shot on the Lions’ last score, then another hard shot when he scampered 19 yards on a second-and-20 play in the final two minutes to help the Lions run out the clock.
“He’s a tough kid, man, just like his brother. You know, we’ve had a long history of Skupins in our program, but you know, Dawson’s a competitor and he’s a fighter and a hard worker and you know, he’s everything that you want your quarterback to be,” Henson said. “We were able to run the ball a little bit more because they were pulling their other safety over to Quinn and, you know, that gave us some great running room and they basically took another guy out of the box.”
After Fracassi’s opening return made it 7-0, Lakeland answered with a 20yard touchdown pass from Farquhar to Reed Jabiro to tie it at 7-7.
South Lyon answered when Fracassi pulled down a jump ball and raced 67 yards for a score, then the Lions made it 21-7 when they cashed in on Fracassi’s interception, with Dakota Blackwell pounding it in on the ground from 4 yards out.
The lead wouldn’t last, with Jackson Campbell scoring twice in a 30-second span, catching a 42yard touchdown pass from Farquhar, then picking off a pass on South Lyon’s first play from scrimmage on the ensuing possession, and returning it 13 yards for the tying score.
“They don’t quit. As kids don’t quit. They try 100-percent effort all the time. Did we make some mistakes? Absolutely. They were they were unforced errors that we made but they overcome them. They keep going then there’s not the heads hanging. Our halftime is ‘Coach, what are we doing? What do we need to do differently? How do you want to set this up?’ There’s no finger pointing. They’re just it’s a good bunch of kids. It’s great bunch of kids to be around and work with their full effort. Did we make some mistakes? Did I make some mistakes? Absolutely. And we’re gonna, we’re gonna fix it. We’re gonna keep going,” Lakeland coach Jim Calhoun said.
“Two good football teams. And one of them made more mistakes than the other, capitalized. When you make those kinds of mistakes against a team as good as South Lyon, unfortunately see what you have. I mean, you start out with a kickoff return touchdown. We’ve got to clean some stuff up. Pass defense, we got to clean some stuff up.”
The Lions wasted no time reclaiming the lead, taking a failed onside kick, and marching 50 yards for the go-ahead score on a 1-yard run by Skupin. The Lions quarterback would hit Zach Ford with the first of his two touchdowns with 19.7 seconds left in the first half to make it a 35-21 margin at the break.
The Eagles’ halftime adjustments defensively allowed them to put the Lions in reverse for a short stint in the third, and shave one touchdown off the deficit when Farquhar hit McCoy Biagioli with an 11-yard TD pass with 3:40 left in the third.
“Made some adjustments at halftime based on what we saw in the first half. And defensively we were able to answer in the third quarter. I mean, I think we came out and we did some good things. But you know, we’ve got to do it better. We’ve got to do it faster. As a coaching staff that’s on me, we’ve got to recognize those things. We’ve got to make those. You can’t wait for a halftime to make adjustments,” Calhoun said. “And tonight Unfortunately, the things that we did in the first half didn’t help. Now once we had time to sit and look at it and go through it, yeah, our second half adjustments, they favored us for a pretty good amount of time. But like I said, it’s the things we just got to get better. We gotta get better.”
Five plays into the fourth quarter, though, and the Lions had reestablished the two-score lead, when Skupin found Fracassi on the visiting sideline, and the senior wideout pulled in a one-handed, 22-yard touchdown catch. An 18-yard touchdown pass from Skupin to Zach Ford put the Lions up 49-28.
“We didn’t think they had anybody who could match up with them. You know, with Quinn or you know, even Zach Ford, you know, he’s another guy or Gavin Limotte,” Henson said. “I mean, we got we’re very fortunate in that aspect where we have guys who can throw the ball or catch the ball and you know, we got a quarterback who can throw it.”
Fracassi agreed. “Alright, they double team me. We got players, you got another receiver, he can make catches, another receiver can make catches every time big time plays,” he said. “Iif you press anyone on this team, we’re getting open. And I mean, they didn’t have any safety help. And that’s, that’s 100 percent win.”
The Eagles got it back to a two-score game with a 3-yard touchdown run by Jabiro with 5:22 left, then got the ball back with a little over three minutes remaining, but had their final drive stall out, turning it over on downs at the South Lyon 21 with 2:06 left. Despite getting behind the sticks with a penalty, the Lions were able to get one first down, and run out the remainder of the time off the clock.