Fowlerville defense shines but offense comes up just short vs Williamston
· Yahoo Sports
When you are fighting injuries on both the offensive and defensive lines, the level of difficulty increases exponentially.
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That is precisely what the Fowlerville Gladiators were dealing with in a 10-7 loss against Williamston on Friday, Sept. 11.
“They (the offensive line) stepped up great.” Fowlerville coach Zack Douglass said. “We got a couple of guys back there who are still banged up a little bit we got guys back who are going to be trending in the right direction.”
Defensively it was a similar story for Fowlerville.
“We had some injuries come up defensively,” he said. “We have had a different defensive every single week this year. Usually, you get into a defensive and that is what you master and go forward with but because of personnel and what opponents are doing we are literally switching our fronts every single week so far.”
It made the loss even tougher since it was so close.
“We expected to move the ball a little bit more on offensive then we did,” Douglass said. “We did good run blocking; we moved the ball running like we thought we could fell a little short because of some penalties at some inopportune times.”
For that reason, there wasn’t much going on from a scoring standpoint. Neither team was able to crack the scoreboard until Williamston hit a 27-yard field goal with 4:28 remaining in the first half.
The running game lead Fowlerville most of the evening. The Gladiators had 98 yards on 17 carries from Ryder Kleinschmidt and Kellen Douglass added 50 yards on nine carries with a touchdown.
“They are both good, gifted athletes (Kleinschmidt and Douglass) and feeding them the ball was a little bit of our plan,” Zack Douglass said.
With a low scoring game and the defense holding, Fowlerville made a major move when Douglass scored from 6-yards out with 2:10 to go in the third quarter to give the Gladiators a 7-3 lead and what appeared might be an inside track to the win.
Ultimately, it would come down the Fowlerville’s ability to stop the Hornets and, in the end, they came up just a little short.
Kleinschmidt felt how close the Gladiators were to victory.
“We had pretty good blocking," he said. "I feel like we had a couple of penalties holding us back if we didn’t those penalties we could have won that game. The offensive line has been stepping up lately. We have had like five or six injuries on our O-line that has been holding us back there but tonight they really stepped up.”
A short pass with 5:58 left on the clock put the Hornets up 10-7, a lead that they wouldn’t relinquish.
In spite of the loss Douglass praised the effort of his team and talked about how they could move forward.
“The kids did great, they are learning, soaking it all in like sponges they are battling and coming to work hard and that is all you can really ask of them," he said. "We do need to get the ball to the edge to some of our other guys. We have a lot of skilled guys on the edge that can move on our team we struggled to get the ball to the edge in the game otherwise our offensive would open up a little bit more.
"The kids are banged up … but they battled."
This article originally appeared on Livingston Daily: Fowlerville defense shines but offense comes up just short vs Williamston