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October 29, 2005Kingsley wins showdown; Stags shut down Suttons Bay in 38-8 victoryByRecord-Eagle staff writer KINGSLEY - The first thing Kingsley football coach Tim Wooer was going to tell his team at halftime was not let up. He didn't have to. The Stags' seniors already had the subject covered. Kingsley - which had to score late to beat Suttons Bay in the regular season despite a 27-12 halftime lead - dominated both sides of the ball on Friday to sink the Norse 38-8 in a Division 6 district semifinal. "The last time we had a letdown in the second half and we didn't want that to happen again," Kingsley senior guard Travis Paton said. "We wanted to make sure we stuffed them throughout the whole game." "We didn't put nails in the coffin last time and their kids made a run at us," Wooer said. "I have to commend our team because at halftime when I went inside, the seniors were already talking about not having a letdown, keeping the pedal to the medal and playing for two more quarters." With the win, Kingsley (9-1) travels to Boyne City (9-1) for next Friday's district final. The Stags led 19-0 at halftime against Suttons Bay (6-4). This time Kingsley doubled its advantage before Suttons Bay broke up the shutout on Aric Browning's 10-yard touchdown run with 22 seconds left. LaKota Raphael ran in the conversion. But the Norsemen couldn't muster much on offense before that scoring drive. Suttons Bay threw two interceptions and was sacked twice. In the first half, Kingsley limited Suttons Bay to 48 total yards and one first down. "We didn't have (an offense)," Suttons Bay coach Joe Trudeau said. "We couldn't run our base stuff. We couldn't set anything up because we couldn't get a first down with our base offense. "They just kicked our butts up front, plain and simple." "We wanted to come out and play hard," said Kingsley senior defensive end Joe Zenner. "We wanted to be physical. Some people have questioned our physicalness so we wanted to come out and make a statement." Kingsley, which got 10 tackles from Drew Wyse and eight from Zenner, even surprised its coach with their play against Suttons Bay. "That was something I didn't expect," Wooer said. "Our kids really stepped it up on defense. They still have some dangerous kids. "They have (Steve) Brockman, (Edgar) Guillen, (Ray) Freund and those kids scared us. But not only did we defend the pass, but we also stopped the run." Two of Kingsley's three scoring drives in the first half started close to midfield. On their opening possession of the game, the Stags drove 53 yards. Wyse's 1-yard run and Kyle Steed's kick made the score 7-0. Kingsley drove 75 yards on its third possession to take a 13-0 lead on another 1-yard plunge by Wyse. With 1:08 left in the half, Caleb Nickerson hit Nick Putala with a 10-yard touchdown pass to cap a 43-yard drive, putting Kingsley up 19-0 at the half. "We put ourselves in a hole again," Trudeau said. "The whole first half was played from our own end." Kingsley scored on its final two possessions of the third quarter - set up by interceptions from Nickerson and A.J. Lawhead - to lead 35-0. Wyse, who finished with 105 yards on 16 carries, rumbled 42 yards and Nickerson hit Zenner with the conversion pass with 7:06 left in the third. Jack Richards added a 2-yard scoring scamper and ran in the conversion with 1:51 left in the third. Steed booted a 21-yard field goal with 1:55 left in the contest to round out the scoring. Elliott Gallagher led the Suttons Bay defense with 11 tackles, making his final school career record total at 340. And 104 of his tackles came in playoff games. Chris Send and Cale Forton added nine tackles while Brockman made eight.
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