Nate Schneider
Sports Scene
Broken hand or not, Pewamo-Westphalia senior quarterback Jimmy Lehman was going to complete the drive he started.
Lehman threw his final pass of the season on a third-and-11 play with 31 seconds remaining in the half of the Division 7 state title game at Ford Field for a 12-yard touchdown pass to Peyton Heckman which put the Pirates up by three scores on Saugatuck.
While he did not play in the second half with his hand wrapped and a self-diagnosed broken bone, Lehman had done plenty enough damage to help send P-W to its second straight state championship.
“I think I was running up the middle and tried to stiff arm a kid and felt something pop in my hand,” Lehman said.
Luckily for him, it was his left non-throwing hand which allowed him to throw the TD pass before departing for good.
For the half that he played, Lehman demonstrated why he has been so important in helping lead Pewamo-Westphalia to back-to-back state championships.
Lehman rushed 17 times for 91 yards and a touchdown in the first half alone, while also completing 3-of-4 passes for 58 yards and an additional score. For the season, Lehman threw for nearly 2,000 yards and 21 touchdowns. He also rushed for around 800 yards and 17 TDs.
But without him in the lineup, P-W head coach Jeremy Miller knew he could turn to a stable of other players to help pick up the slack.
“We missed [Lehman] a lot,” Miller said. “He’s a great player. I think he gets a lot of credit being a quarterback and rightfully so. We missed him. But the guy who stepped up in his absence, Noah Spitzley, did a great job too. It’s a next man up mentality. It hurts to not have him out there, but you have the confidence other guys are going to step up when it’s their turn.”
The game went into halftime at 21-0 with Lehman guiding the way, while the Pirates showed how strong their defense by continuing to pitch a shutout with neither team scoring a point after halftime.
Lehman has been a huge factor defensively all season, being the rare player who is both a quarterback and a defensive lineman. He garnered Division 7-8 All-State First Team recognition as a defensive lineman.
“We had a lot of people this year who really felt like they needed to step up,” Lehman added. “They did it. We lost our first game and that was some of the biggest adversity we went through this year. It was about how we were going to respond to that? It was about competing the best we could and we went from there.”
And now the Pirates hoist the D7 state title trophy once again.