Nate Schneider
Sports Scene
This was the year all the stars were supposed to align for West Bloomfield.
Under eighth-year head coach Ron Bellamy, the Lakers were stacked with future Division 1 talent including a quarterback headed to Bowling Green and two wide receivers going to Wisconsin.
Instead, Bellamy and West Bloomfield will have to wait another year as the Division I state championship game saw Clarkston best the Lakers by a count of 3-2 in the second-lowest scoring state final game in MHSAA history.
It was a much different outcome than when West Bloomfield blasted the Wolves to the tune of 37-16 during the regular season, which was probably what a lot of people envisioned happening again especially with Clarkston being without their top offensive weapon due to injury.
Instead, the Lakers will have to wait for at least another year to celebrate the program’s first-ever state title.
“Nothing Clarkston did really surprised me,” Bellamy said. “We knew they would blitz more. We knew they would rotate the coverages. For the most part, we moved the ball well. But the two interceptions and the fumble killed us. You can’t lose the turnover battle and expect to win. That’s the number one reason we lost.”
Bellamy, a former wide receiver at the University of Michigan, has watched the Lakers grow the last many years. After posting two nine-win seasons the last three years and falling in districts, West Bloomfield took a major step forward this fall.
It helped having talent such as senior quarterback Bryce Veasley (Bowling Green) plus Wisconsin wide receiver commits Taj Mustapha and AJ Abbott at their disposal, but the D1 state title game was just not their day.
“We had too many penalties and long fields,” Bellamy added. “We couldn’t overcome that adversity today.”
The Wolves did exactly what they set out to do with star running back Joshua Cantu out with injury.
“We wanted to shorten the football game and we managed to do that,” Clarkston head coach Kurt Richardson said. “The fewer possessions we gave their offense, the better chance we had.”
It was the second-lowest scoring game in MHSAA state finals history. Roemer punted eight times for a state finals record, while the 14 punts in the game tied the state finals record.
Richardson, the long-time Wolves coach, kept it succinct when asked about the tight-knit community.
“Clarkston is a special place and I’ll leave it at that,” Richardson added.