First loss ends Clinton’s football season

Losing isn’t an easy thing to accept when the first loss of the season is the last.Clinton High School’s varsity football team went into the Michigan High School Athletic Association Division 6 District final at Monroe Saint Mary Catholic Central (SMCC) with an undefeated record of 10-0 but the Falcons beat the Redskins 50-15 in the championship game and ended their successful season.Clinton head coach Scott McNitt told his noticeably upset squad after the game that they had nothing to be ashamed of and to hold their heads up high.“Our kids battled as hard as they could. I’m real proud of our kids,” said McNitt.“We knew we were going to have to play a mistake-free, pretty much perfect game to contend with them,” he added. “They have an outstanding offense... They wore us down. They are much bigger and more physical than we were up front.”Clinton kicked off to the Falcons to open the game and they scored a touchdown on their first possession after eating up almost half of the first quarter clock. Senior Mitchell Lamour finished the drive with a five-yard run into the end zone. The Falcons added two more points on a conversion run by Justin Carrabino to follow for an 8-0 lead with 6:26 left in the quarter.But Clinton answered back less than a minute later on its first offensive possession. The Redskins were on a third down and three-yard situation with the ball on the Falcons’ 47-yard line and junior Matthew Sexton broke free for a touchdown at the 5:28 mark.Eric Bouce centered the ball through the uprights on the point after touchdown (PAT) kick for Clinton and the Falcon’s were up by only one point at 8-7.A pass interference call on the Redskins’ Jared Sackett gave SMCC a first down on their following possession on Clinton’s 24-yard line. Four plays later, the Falcons scored with Lamour rushing into the end zone from 12 yards out.Phillip Lehmann was sent out to attempt the Falcons’ PAT kick and he missed. However, a flag was thrown on Clinton for roughing the kicker and SMCC then added two points on a conversion run by Bryce Windham for a 16-7 lead.After entering the second quarter, Clinton advanced to SMCC’s 28-yard line but turned the ball over on downs. The Redskins forced SMCC to punt on its following offensive possession and drove the ball back to the Falcon’s 27-yard line. Ryan Karapas tried to gain some quick yardage for Clinton by throwing a pass but it was intercepted by SMCC’s Windham and placed on the Redskins’ 30-yard line. A couple of plays later, Carrabino rushed into the end zone from the 10-yard line. Lehmann’s following PAT was good and SMCC increased its lead to 23-7 with 5:59 left in the first half.“We had a couple opportunities here and there. The interception there in the second quarter and then they went down and scored that kind of hurt, really bad,” said McNitt.A long 48-yard touchdown pass from Windham to Travis Vuich put the Falcon’s up 29-7 late in the second quarter.Sexton blocked the Falcon’s ensuing PAT and the Redskins had 1:48 left to work with in the first half. The time on the clock was plenty enough for Clinton’s Collin Poore who used just 13 seconds to run 80 yards and into the end zone on the following Falcons’ kick.A two-point conversion pass from Karapas to Blake Rogers was bobbled a couple of times but hauled in to give Clinton two more points to cut the Falcons’ lead to 29-15.But there was still 1:35 left on the clock in the second quarter and SMCC scored again with just 12.2 seconds left in the first half. Lamour rushed into the end zone on a five-yard dash and Lehmann’s following PAT was good to increase the Falcons’ lead to 36-15 after two quarters of action.“We tried to get out at halftime at 29-15. That was big. We made a nice drive there to get down inside the five and couldn’t score. That hurt as well,” said McNitt.Poore rushed to the Falcon’s three-yard line to give Clinton a first down in the Falcons’ red zone with 3:24 left in the third quarter. Clinton coach McNitt ran Poore three more times and advanced the ball to the one-yard line.On fourth down, with one yard to go, Clinton rushed Noah Poore and he was tackled behind the line of scrimmage and the Falcon’s took the ball over on downs on their own four-yard line.“They are an outstanding team,” said McNitt. “They are bigger then we are. I’m not going to say they could match us speed-wise, but they were physical and to the ball really quick. They adapted pretty well to what we were trying to do.”The third quarter went scoreless but SMCC added two more touchdowns in the fourth quarter while not giving anything up to the Redskins.“Film can only go so far until you actually see it live,” said McNitt. “We tried to tell our kids they are big, physical, they’re going to execute it like no other team we’ve seen. And they did exactly that.”SMCC’s Carrabino recorded a 38-yard touchdown run with 8:53 left in the game and hit the end zone again on a 13-yard run with 7:18 remaining in the contest. Lehmann’s PAT kicks were good following both touchdowns.“They are a team that scores quick and they had to grind it out tonight. So, defensively, we did the best we could against that,” said McNitt.The Redskins finished with just one loss (10-1 overall) after securing its third straight Tri-County Conference title with a 7-0-league record.“It’s a back-to-back 10-win season. We won our league title for the third-straight year. We’re very proud of this group of kids,” said McNitt. “We just ran into a great football team tonight that was just better than we were. We had our chances and just didn’t get it done.”A majority of Clinton’s players are expected to return next year.“We have a very young team. We’ll have a lot of kids back. So, hopefully, this is their motivation for the off season and we’ll come back ready to go,” said McNitt.