It was a frustrating conclusion to a frustrating football season for Hopkins, which Friday night dared, but failed, to upset an 8-1 playoff team that went undefeated in the O-K Silver Conference.
The Vikings took Kelloggsville down to the wire before losing 35-32 to this year’s league champion.
What made it particularly frustrating was that the defeat looked a lot like three others this year that got away in the home stretch. And this one, just like the other three, was the result of an inability to convert points after touchdown.
Hopkins lost 36-30 to Manistee despite scoring the same number of touchdowns. Hopkins lost 34-30 to Belding despite scoring the same number of touchdowns. Hopkins lost 21-14 to Charlotte in double overtime when successful PATs would have meant victory in regulation time. And Hopkins lost to Kelloggsville despite scoring just as many touchdowns, five, as the Rockets.
Turn around those four losses on PATs and the Vikings would be headed for the playoffs with a 7-2 record instead of 3-6.
The two teams traded touchdowns furiously in the first half, with both teams scoring four and Kelloggsville leading 27-26 at intermission.
The Rockets looked like they were going to run away with the ballgame in the first two minutes, eating up huge chunks of yardage in an 83-yard drive that took just six plays. Leading the charge was slippery running back Thomas Griggs, whom the Vikings had a hard time bringing to the ground all night long. Not long after he broke loose for a 41-yard run, he took the football into the end zone from 10 yards out and there still was 10:06 left on the clock for the first quarter.
But Hopkins responded with a seven-play, 60-yard drive with good old-fashioned smash mouth football out of a full house backfield of ball carriers Mason Schaendorf, Brock Eller and Ryan Haveman. Schaendorf took it in from 14 yards and Haveman scored the Vikings’ only two-point conversion of the evening to put the home team up 8-7.
And the game wasn’t yet five minutes old.
Kelloggsville went back to work and scored a bit more slowly the second time around, mostly because of a couple of nice defensive plays by Jake Cleypool. But the Rockets got a big play on a 26-yard pass from quarterback Alex Guzman to Demarion Smith and later scored their second TD on a 13-yard pass from Guzman to Josh VanDalsen.
The Vikings continued to impress with some more of that old-time smash mouth football, with linemen Levi Miller, Cleypool, Terry Thomas and Reed Streigle opening holes for the running corps. But their march stalled with fourth down and seven at the K-ville 27 when sophomore QB Nolan Smith hit Mark Davis with a clutch scoring strike to tie the score.
Branden DeGroot came up with a big third down play to break up a pass, forcing the Rockets to punt to midfield. Schaendorf then broke loose on a 47-yard run to the 2-yard line and Haveman bulled his way into the end zone on the next play.
The Vikings were daring to smell an upset with a 20-14 lead and seven minutes left in the half.
But Griggs dragged just about the entire Hopkins defense with him on a 29-yard run, Guzman fired a clutch pass to VanDalsen to get the ball to the seven for first and goal and two plays later took it in himself to tie it back up at 20-all. The big plays negated a couple of sparkling defensive stops by Thomas, Nathan Roberts and Cleypool.
Haveman then came up with a big play, a 66-yard run from his own 29, and Cyrus Miner scored from four yards out on the next play. The Vikings were up 26-20.
But Kelloggsville found a way to score a fourth time in the last three minutes on a 19-yard scamper by Griggs. The highlight of drive was a pass to Demarion Smith, proving once again the vulnerability of the Vikings’s pass defense.
Eric Ruibal booted the third of his four extra points to give his team a one-point edge at intermission.
The second half was as defensive as the first was offensive.
On just the second play after kickoff, Caleb Ryan took a turn toting the ball, breaking away for a 63-yard TD run to give Hopkins a 32
-27 advantage, but it was done putting points on the board for the rest of the evening. Kelloggsville started to come up with ways to handle the smash mouth football
The Rockets had a huge threat thwarted by Nolan Smith’s interception at his own five, turning the table on the block of his attempted punt just a few plays earlier.
The Vikings came up big defensively against Griggs and stopped K-Ville’s ground game effectively. Coming up big were Bryce Smith with a no-gain stop on third down and a two-yard sack by Thomas. Logan Blank broke up a fourth down pass.
Things were looking pretty good for Hopkins late in the third quarter and throughout much of the fourth when it slowly and deliberately marched from its own five all the way to 20 yards away from putting the game on ice. But then a fumble happened, the Rockets recovered and they did what they had to do to avoid an upset. Crucial passes on third and long and fourth and short and an inside pitchout to Griggs got the job done.
Griggs polished off the final scoring drive of the evening with a five-yard burst with just 1:43 left.
Thus ended a frustrating 3-6 Hopkins season that easily could’ve been 7-2.
PHOTOS: Hopkins honored members of the first Athletic Hall of Fame Friday night at halftime.
Representatives of former Hopkins High School Principal Al Deal, who later became commissioner of the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association.
Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Knobloch, parents of all-stater Kris Knobloch, who also starred in football at Albion College.
Karen Caywood, point guard for the 1975 state runner-up Lady Vikings basketball team and member of the University of Utah NCAA champion softball team.
A large number of representatives from the Roxbury family turned out to honor Joe Roxbury, who went on to pitch for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1941.
