CONSTANTINE, MI – As the son of Constantine’s 17th-year football head coach Shawn Griffith, senior Owen “Juice” Griffith has been around the Falcons program for as long as he can remember.
So, it was fitting for the Falcons to pull off a classic Constantine win on Senior Night, defeating Kalamazoo United 32-14 at Sweetland Stadium to capture a Southwestern Athletic Conference Lakeshore Division championship.
“As a brotherhood, we’ve all played football since Rocket – since we were little – and there’s been the build-up of sitting in the stands watching Constantine teams win conference championship games when we were younger, so it’s nice to see ourselves finally win one at home and become outright champs, rather than splitting it like we did two years ago,” Owen Griffith said.
After a back-and-forth first quarter that saw Constantine and United combined for four touchdowns, the Falcons’ Full House-T offense churned out 4-yard gain after 4-yard gain to move the chains and keep the clock ticking.
Constantine finished with 290 rushing yards on 54 carries, led by sophomore Bennett VandenBerg, who carried 16 times for 152 yards, including a 41-yard touchdown on the Falcons’ fourth play from scrimmage. Junior Brayden Clark added 18 carries for 59 yards and caught a 37-yard touchdown pass from Caden Hetmansperger to make it a 16-6 game with 1:12 left in the first quarter.
That methodical ground game also held United’s potent offense just three possessions after the first quarter.
“It took a full four-back effort, and I really thought our offensive line kind of stepped up. That’s as good as we’ve played up front all year long,” Shawn Griffith said. “Other than our first touchdown there where Bennett broke a long run, we were pretty methodical, and I really thought that ended up being to our advantage, grinding the clock out because we were having all kinds of difficulty stopping them.
“With about two minutes left in the game, I went over to our defensive coordinator, Darrin VandenBerg, and I said, ‘Man, can you believe they’ve only got 14 points?’ Because it sure seemed like they were gashing us the whole game for long runs and some good play calling on their end, but when you don’t have the football, you’re going to struggle to make more plays than what they did.
“So, hats off to them. That’s a really good football team Kalamazoo United has, and I’m excited for our kids. We’ve worked pretty darn hard this year as a unit and have overcome a lot of things as far as injuries and stuff like that, and to be able to come out here and win a league championship, it’s huge for our kids and huge for the school and the community.”
Leading 16-14 with 19 seconds left in the first quarter, Constantine received a Kalamazoo United kickoff and marched 76 yards in 18 plays, capped by a 3-yard touchdown run from Clark to make it a 24-14 game.
The marathon scoring drive left just 1:25 left on the second quarter clock, but that was almost enough time for United’s explosive offense to find the end zone.
A 35-yard run from United senior Michael Keckler put the Titans in scoring position, and a 10-yard run from Willem de Jong put the ball at Constantine’s 10-yard line with 11 seconds left, but the Falcons’ defense came up with its first and most important stop of the game, as Caden Hetmansperger sacked quarterback Will Zuiderveen to bring the second quarter to a close.
“(The long second-quarter drive) was huge because we kept saying we don’t want to give them the ball with any time left to retaliate and score because we knew they were going to get the ball coming out in the second half,” Shawn Griffith said. “With 1:25, I thought we’re in good shape, and then they end up right back down here on the 10-yard line, and we have a huge play by Caden on a sack on their final play of the half, and I think that kind of set the tone.
“It’s demoralizing to a defense. I mean, it wasn’t like their kids were making bad plays; we were chunking 3 and 4 yards a play every time, and on fourth down, we were able to make the right call and stay away from their pressure that they were giving us and convert.
“It’s kind of been Constantine football here for a while, so I was pretty impressed with how these kids stepped up and were able to execute the game plan.”
Kalamazoo United opened up the second half with an eight-play drive that moved the ball to midfield, but on third-and-9, Owen Griffith sacked and stripped United quarterback Will Zuiderveen, allowing teammate Heston Wiggs to recover at the Titans’ 44-yard line.
Eight plays later, Constantine took a 32-14 lead on a 5-yard touchdown run from Hetmansperger and his two-point conversion pass to Clark with 3:54 left in the third quarter.
United’s second and final drive of the second half ended at the Constantine 17-yard line, when a Zuiderveen scramble came up a couple yards shy of the line to gain on fourth-and-9, allowing the Falcons to take over and march down to the Titans’ 2-yard line before kneeling out the clock.
By the time the final buzzer sounded, Constantine dominated the time of possession and ran 63 plays to United’s 34, which is a stat that makes Wiggs and the rest of the Falcons’ offensive line smile.
“We just love it because we go in and do conditioning almost every day,” Wiggs said. “We have CrossFit during the week, and we know that we’re the better-conditioned team when we step out there on that field, so when we see them breathing heavy, we know we got the game in the bag.”
Drew Finley led United with 62 rushing yards, including a 9-yard touchdown run that cut the Titans’ deficit to 8-6 with 8:15 left in the first quarter, while Keckler added 40 yards on the ground. Zuiderveen finished with 28 yards rushing and 60 yards passing, including a 51-yard touchdown pass to Willem de Jong that made it a 16-14 game with 1:25 left in the second quarter.
“Offensively, I thought we ran the ball really well tonight,” United coach Troy Ayotte said. “We took some bad plays on some passes tonight where they got to us, but credit to them; they played good defense at times, too.
“Our offense in the second half, we just had a few bad plays here and there. We still moved the ball, but we just couldn’t finish drives.”
Constantine improves to 8-0 for the first time since 2010, when the Falcons reached the Division 6 state semifinals and had Owen Griffith on the sideline as a team manager for his father.
United falls to 5-3 after seeing its five-game winning streak come to an end.
“We’re going to use the same message we used at the beginning of the year when we played some really good talent – it’s going to sharpen us,” Ayotte said of what his team can take away from the loss. “We’re going to go back, we’re going to take an honest look at what we did and what we need to improve on, and this team could be a really good playoff team still, if we can just iron some of the things out that we need to iron out, like we did after the first two games.”
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