Sabers top Portagers, improve to 4-0

By DYLAN SAVELA, Manistee News Advocate Sports Writer
Published: Saturday, September 19, 2009 12:15
MANISTEE — Manistee Catholic Central and Onekama both know a thing or two about distances.

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.