John Raffel
Sports Scene
It was a battle of unbeaten teams in the Division 4 MHSAA state title game, with Zeeland West (14-0) taking a 45-7 victory over Marine City (13-1) at Ford Field on November 25.
Gunnar Glodich caught a 36-yard pass from Adam Kroll to give Marine City a 7-0 lead. But it didn’t take Zeeland West long to respond, as Brad Mesbergen returned the ensuing kickoff 97 yards to tie the game.
The return set an MHSAA championship game record.
The Dux added two more scores in the first half, one on a 57-yard run by Kyle Kujawa and one on a 3-yard pass from Clay Coatney to Derek Postma.
In the second half, Coatney passed 5 yards to Jordan VanDort, Marcus Lambert had a 28-yard run for a touchdown, and Mesbergen returned an interception 32 yards for another score.
Zeeland West had 12 different ball carriers and were led by Kujawa with 103 yards on 11 carries and Postma with 60 yards on 13 tries.
VanDort caught four passes for 110 yards.