By Cris Greer, WKTV Managing Editor
With Wayland more than doubling the offensive minutes of South Christian, Sailors’ coach Danny Brown was happy to get the win and fight through some adversity in a 21-14 home victory and stay undefeated.
“Wins are hard to come by, and sometimes you don’t win the way you want to,” said Brown, whose team improved to 7-0 overall, 5-0 in the conference. “It was nice to be able to handle that adversity tonight and come out and find a way to win when things aren’t going your way.
“For us, it’s a learning moment to understand that when you get a big win like last week, the target gets bigger on your back.”
Last week, South Christian ended Grand Rapids Catholic Central’s 42-game winning streak with a 36-34 roller-coaster victory.
This time, they edged Wayland, which definitely controlled the clock with 34 minutes on offense, compared to 14 for the Sailors.
“They ate up a ton of the clock,” Brown said. “They were physical, and their running back ran really well. A ton of credit to Wayland. They were really tough.
“Their main offensive scheme tonight was a little bit different than what we were used to. Once we kind of settled in then we made it a little bit tougher on them, and thankfully our kids found a way to pull it out.”
Wayland tied the game at 7-all right before halftime on a Maverick Daley TD run, and then went ahead 14-7 on a run by Dustin Loomans after an 8-minute drive in the third quarter.
South Christian scored about 1-1/2 minutes later to knot the game up at 14 on a Jake DeHaan 13-yard run, and then sealed the game at 21-14 on another DeHaan run, this time from 43 yards out.
DeHaan completed 9 of 16 passes for 102 yards and one touchdown. He also had 14 carries for 135 yards on the ground and two touchdowns.
South Christian stopped a Wayland drive with an interception in the fourth quarter, and held off the Wildcats the rest of the way.
“The fourth quarter wasn’t perfect, but we got them to turn the ball over,” Brown said.
Cam Post led South Christian with 9.5 tackles, while Cayden Dykema had 8.5.
Big game for Maverick Daley
Wayland’s Maverick Daley had 29 carries for 141 yards and one touchdown.
“He is kind of the glue behind our offense,” said Wayland Coach Tim Gibson, whose team fell to 4-3 overall, 2-3 in the OK Gold. “He gets better the more carries he gets. He had a great game.”
Wayland’s Elijah Dollarhide and Hudson Biondo had four tackles apiece.
Gibson said if his team could play sound defense against the Sailors, then they would hang in there, and they did just that.
“I’m proud of the way our kids played; I like our team quite a bit,” Gibson continued. “They played hard tonight and did a lot of great things on the football field. We just didn’t do quite enough.
“In the end, they just made a couple more plays than we did. They’re a very good football team.”
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