Sabers top Portagers, improve to 4-0
By DYLAN
SAVELA, Manistee News Advocate Sports
Writer
Published:
Each school knows its respective home field is 13 miles away from the other, and on Friday it was the Portagers who took the hop, skip, and a jump to Saber Stadium for the Mid State Activities Conference-North match-up.
Both schools realized how long the seemingly short distance of fourth-and-goal on the 1-yard-line can be — each stopping the other in identical scenarios.
But, it was Division 8’s fourth-ranked Sabers who distanced themselves where it matters — on the scoreboard — topping Onekama 28-6 for their 13th straight regular season win.
“That
was a good, physical high school
game,” Sabers coach Dave Russell
said. “Both of those teams just go
at it. I wish I could talk about
what worked and what didn’t work,
but it was just a good high school
game. Everybody did what they were
supposed to do.
“I knew that no matter what the
record is, they’re going to play us
tough,” he said of the cross-county
rival. “Jim Hunter is one hell of a
coach. He works on a lot of things
with those kids, and they played
well.”
However, adding senior Nick Niesen
to an already-deadly Saber
backfield, proved to be too much for
the Portagers. Niesen has seen
limited time this season because of
a knee injury, but inserting the
senior running back Friday provided
the Sabers with 70 yards on seven
carries and two rushing touchdowns.
“We have two really good running
backs in Nick D. and Nick K.,”
Niesen said of Doyle and Kolanowski.
“So, when they’re keying on them,
it’s nice to sneak in there a couple
times and catch them off guard. We
did pretty well, but we still have
things to work on,” he said. “We got
a victory, but we’re never
satisfied, you know, we can never be
satisfied. So we’ll take the
victory, celebrate this weekend, and
then Monday come back to work.”
“Niesen is a force on our offense
and defense,” Russell said. “Nick
was able to run that short trap up
the middle a little bit tonight.
It’s nice to see that he’s coming
back on his own and hopefully next
week, he’ll be even more ready.”
The Sabers (2-0, 4-0) were led on
the ground by junior Nick Kolanowski
who had 155 yards on 18 carries,
including an 86-yard touchdown
during a one-play second-quarter
drive. Junior Nick Doyle had 135
yards with a rushing touchdown on 18
carries for the Sabers, while senior
quarterback Garrett Owens had 19
yards on three carries. Owens also
went 3-7 with 51 passing yards.
MCC’s Nathan Miller had two
receptions for 37 yards.