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Junior quarterback Adam Powers launches a pass in Canton’s 20-14 victory over Walled Lake Central. The win returned the league championship to Canton.Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, nor wind, nor dead of night shall deter the Canton Chiefs.
Although the blustery weather conditions—a good mix of just about everything—subsided to a simple chill by the time the starting horn sounded, it was business as usual for the Chiefs.
They rode in a on the back of the cold front and defeated Walled Lake Central, 20-14, at home on Thursday. With the victory, Canton is now at 8-0 for the season. The Chiefs recaptured the Western Lakes Activity Association (WLAA) championship crown—its fourth in five years.
The Chiefs, who usually devour the turf under their cleats with their running game, were limited to 140 yards on the ground-still respectable but not the 300 plus as usual.
However, Canton didn’t take long to get things rolling and proved that sometimes less is ‘Moores’ when senior halfback Nick Moores returned the opening kickoff 80 yards for a touchdown.
“That was a nice way to start in a big game,” said Canton Coach Tim Baechler. “It’s nice to hang a quick seven on there with out having to do much.”
Central didn’t have much to do, either, but it wasn’t by choice. Canton’s defense put a stranglehold on the Vikings’ offense and held them to less than 50 yards in first half.
Moores scored again on a four-yard plunge in the second quarter to give the Chiefs a 13-0 advantage. The score capped off a 12-play, 53-yard drive that stripped nearly six minutes off the clock.
The Chiefs plugged away in the second half, too. Junior Adam Powers, the third-string quarterback, connected with senior tight end Brandon Fender for an eight-yard scoring pass on fourth-and-4 at 11:55 of the fourth. Canton converted two other fourth-downs during the 16-play drive that spanned eight minutes. Moores picked up two yards on a fourth-and-1 and Adams threw a 14-yard strike to senior Chris Woudstra on fourth-and-6.
Central got things going after that.
At 10:07 of the fourth, senior running back Kevin Long broke free for a 41-yard scoring run to make it a 20-6 ball game. Then, with 27 seconds left in the game, junior quarterback Cody Rzeznik scored on a one-yard lunge to close the gap to six points.
Canton recovered the Vikings’ onside kick to seal the championship.
“It’s very satisfying,” Baechler said of his fourth championship in his nine years at Canton’s helm. “We won it three years in a row and we felt last year we were the best team but didn’t get it done with the guys that we had. Livonia Franklin got it and deserved it and we felt it was ours but there was nothing we could do about it except to try and get it done this year. We’ve had a lot of injured kids and lot of kids stepped up and did a good enough job to just get it done.”
Baechler has had to change the line-up around this year do to some injuries to key players.
Senior running phenom Deshon McClendon has been hampered with ankle and back injuries. Baechler said McClendon did play the whole game on defense but didn’t know when he would be ready to resume fullback duties.
Senior quarterback Steve Paye, who took over the position when starter Ben Vaughn went down, could be back in two weeks in time for district play, according to Baechler.
“When somebody else falls, the strength of your team has to get stronger and that’s our defense and our (offensive) line, which I thought has taken a few steps forward the last few weeks,” Baechler said. “Getting Paye back will help and we can get Adam (Powers) back over. The big thing is Deshon; he’s a game-breaker on offense. Our backs are running hard but we need more of a threat at fullback or start blocking it better.”
A winless (as of Thursday) Salem team is the only thing that stands in the way of the Chiefs’ perfect season—just one of the team’s many goals this season as they try to make it back to the state championship finale.
“First goal is division championship,” Baechler said. “Second is league. Third goal is to go 9-0. We have some other goals but we just hope to get healthy so we can try and go make a deep run.”
