Lake Orion grounds Athens to earn OAA-Red title share
BY DAN STICKRADT
SENIOR EDITOR
dan.stickradt@northoaklandsports.com
LAKE ORION — A year ago Lake Orion’s only loss during its state championship season was to Farmington Harrison. The Dragons earned a rematch with the state’s most feared and respected program.
Lake Orion broke a 7-7 halftime tie Friday in its OAA Red Division showdown with Troy Athens by scoring on its first three possessions of the second half and the Dragons’ defense grounded the Red Hawks for long stretches of the game en route to a 28-14 victory.
Lake Orion, winners of six straight after a season-opening loss to Oxford, clinched at least a tie for the OAA Red title, the school’s sixth in head coach Chris Bell’s 14 seasons with the Dragons.
“Winning the league is our first goal,” admitted Bell, whose team has won or shared three of the past four league crowns. “It’s a great accomplishment. Once you win the league, then you can go after other goals. We still have the Clarkston game in Week 9 and we don’t want to share it.”
Before its rivalry game with Clarkston, Lake Orion (6-1, 6-0) will host OAA White Division champion Farmington Harrison next weekend in the OAA Red-White crossover. Harrison defeated Lake Orion 24-7 in last year’s OAA crossover game.
“They are fast, skilled, physical football team,” admitted Bell of Harrison. “We expect a great football game with them.”
Lake Orion, the defending Division 1 state champs, played out a great football game of its own to take over sole possession of first place in the OAA-Red with only a Week 9 game at Clarkston left on the league schedule.
Jacob Miller finished with 34 carries for a career-high 284 yards and scored three of the four touchdowns for the Dragons, who qualified for the postseason for the 13th time in the past 14 seasons.
“The offensive line helped me out a lot. They helped push me off the ball,” said Miller, sending credit to his teammates. “There were holes everywhere. I just had to make the cuts.”
Miller scored on runs of 3 and 4 yards in the third quarter to help Lake Orion open up a 21-7 advantage with 4:19 to play in the frame.
Lake Orion quarterback Sean Charette, who needed 131 passing yards to set the Dragons’ all-time single-season mark, was held in check, throwing for only nine yards on a 1-for-5 performance. He had two interceptions and both came in the end zone to stall drives in the first half.
“Our secondary is very good. We can hang with anybody,” said third-year Athens coach Josh Heppner. “I am just disappointed elsewhere because we shot ourselves in the foot the whole night.”
The Dragons, who have defeated Athens 11 straight times, opened up a bigger whole two plays into the fourth quarter, this time with Zach Arnold getting the ball on a fake and running in untouched from 29 yards out to pad the lead to 28-7.
Arnold finished 95 yards on nine rushes for the Dragons, who collected 443 rushing yards in the game.
“When we were firing the ball on all cylinders we took the ball 80 yards and we march right down the field and chew up eight and a half minutes of clock,” said Heppner. “That’s type of stuff that were used to doing.
“Our line play, I don’t know what happened today,” continued Heppner. “Our line play wasn’t very good. We’re talking Week 7 and having the amount of mistakes we made it’s unacceptable.”
Defensively, Lake Orion held Athens to only 11 first downs and 237 yards of offense.
Miller scored the game’s first touchdown on the Dragons’ first possession, scampering in from 4 yards out. Lake Orion outgained Athens 145-144 in the first half despite getting the ball into the red zone three times.
Athens, forced to punt on its first four possessions, finally sustained a drive late in the second quarter. Getting the ball back with 6:18 to play in the frame, the Red Hawks put together a 15-play, 80-yard drive which was capped by Lonnie Bolden’s 2-yard run with 19.4 ticks left in the quarter.
The only other scoring drive for the Red Hawks (5-2, 4-2) ended with 2:00 left in the game, when Sam Haskell broke free for a 77-yard TD sprint. The ensuing on-side kick attempt failed and Lake Orion ran out the clock.
Haskell had 79 yards on the night, while Lonnie Jaynes added 50 yards on 11 rushes and Bolden had 49 yards on nine touches. Ben Bartnowak was 10-for-19 passing for 52 yards.
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Category: High School, Lake Orion, Prep Wraps, Troy Athens
