Football: Dow freshmen go up big, hold on for win

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The Midland Dow freshman football team got out to a big lead against Bay City Central Wednesday and then fought off a late surge as the Chargers held on to beat the Wolves 27-14 at Dow High School.

Dow held a 27-6 lead at the beginning of the fourth quarter and looked as though they would cruise to an easy victory. But the Wolves brought down Brandon Sklenar in the end zone for a safety, scored a touchdown on their next possession, and then were threatening at the goal line before an interception by Eric Schwenk sealed the win for Dow.

“You’d like to be able to finish and put a good team away,” said coach Jason Watkins. “But that is a good football team down there. They hit very hard, they kept coming, and they kept getting after us. It was a well played game by them, we just executed a couple more times than they did.”

It was the special teams executing early, though, as the two teams combined for five punts and a turnover on downs in the game’s opening 12 minutes.

“At the freshman level we don’t trade tapes and we don’t have scout films, so we have no idea what the other team is going to do,” Watkins said. “When you have two good teams playing against each other, that’s going to lead to lots of three-and-outs while you figure out what the other team is doing and what the other team is giving you.”

Dow got things figured out in the second quarter pretty quickly, though, as Tom Skoczylas took Schwenk’s option pitch to the outside on the first play of the second quarter and sprinted down the sideline for a 71-yard touchdown to give Dow the 6-0 lead. Mitchell Ballard connected on the extra point to make it 7-0.

Central came right back as good field position led to a 22-yard touchdown pass to Derek Seifferly from Jacob Lochinski that cut into Dow’s lead. The Wolves were unable to connect on the PAT as Dow held on to a 7-6 lead.

But the Chargers would answer on the next possession when Schwenk hit Tyler Huntress for a big first down that set up his own 20-yard keeper that made it 13-6. Ballard was good on the extra point.

The two teams traded turnovers to close out the half, and Dow would run out the clock to head into the break with a 14-6 lead.

The second half began well for the Chargers as the kickoff got past the Central return team, forcing the Wolves to begin at their own 10. On the first play from scrimmage, Skoczylas dove on a Central fumble to get the ball back for Dow in scoring position.

But for the second time on the afternoon, the Chargers immediately followed a Central turnover with one of their own as the Wolves got the ball back once more.

“It was a rollercoaster of momentum,” Watkins said. “They fumbled, we fumbled. Right back and forth. You think you’ve got something and they take it right away.”

Dow would shrug off the fumble, though, and increase their lead to 27-6 on two more touchdown runs from Schwenk, including a 54-yarder at the beginning of the fourth quarter.

“[Schwenk] had a terrific game,” Watkins said. “He’s a guy we know is a solid running back. We asked him to play quarterback at the beginning of the season because of what we’re trying to do, and he’s really coming into his own.”

It looked like Dow would all but run away with the game after Central fumbled on the Chargers’ 3 to give Dow another possession. But that’s when the Wolves dropped Sklenar for a safety and went on a run of their own.

Lochinski and Seifferly hooked up on another touchdown pass and Central recovered the onside kick to get the ball back. It looked like the Wolves would find the end zone again to pull within a score, but Schwenk stepped in front of a Lochinski pass for the interception, and Dow would run out the clock to seal the victory.

“My hat is off to Bay City Central,” Watkins said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun watching these two classes play against each other for the next four years.”

The Chargers (4-1) will return to action next week when they travel to Bay City to face John Glenn High School. Game time is scheduled for 6 p.m.

For more photos from Wednesday’s game, click on “Photo Slideshow” in the top right corner of this article.

Photos by Jason Wolverton