Harrison 28, Berkley 13

I did the play-by-play of this game, and now I'm trying my hand at a little sportswriting, you know, to go with...

A week after a pair of defensive touchdowns in the final two minutes gave Farmington Hills Harrison an improbable 37-27 win over Birmingham Brother Rice in the opening round of the playoffs, a pair of special teams touchdowns were instrumental for the Hawks in their 28-13 District Final win this afternoon over the visiting Berkley Bears.

Harrison (11-0) advances to meet Warren DeLaSalle (8-2) in the Regionals next weekend at Buller Field.

The loss ends the 41-year coaching career of retiring Berkley coach Jim MacDougall who led the Bears (9-2) to one of the best seasons in school history in his final season on the sidelines.

Harrison overcame 4 turnovers and an offense which sputtered most of the afternoon to win, primarily because the Hawks defense was able to shut down Berkley’s star running back Terrell Porter. While he scored both of the Berkley touchdowns today to run his season total to 32 (29 rushing), Porter was held to roughly half the average of 145 rushing yards per game which he brought into the contest. The only two games this season in which Porter failed to rush for 100 yards were the only two games the Bears lost this season.

Playing without their leading rusher Steve Slobin—out for the season with a knee injury sustained on the first play of the game last week against Brother Rice—the Hawks turned the ball over on the first play from scrimmage when Aaron Burbridge fumbled and the Bears recovered at the Harrison 27. Three running plays netted the Bears -1 yard and Berkley had to punt.

With 6:40 left in the first quarter, Burbridge atoned for his early bobble with a remarkable 83-yard journey of a punt return for a touchdown during which the junior wide out simply hurdled a would-be tackler at his own 25 and outraced the rest of the Bears to the end zone.

Berkley answered just before the half when Porter, open in the flat, caught a 27-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Jim Bernie to cap a 71-yard, 11-play drive which began when Harrison running back Austin Hunter lost a fumble and it was a 7-7 game with 0:55 left in the second quarter.

It took Harrison 0:13 to answer. Jake Vento—whose 61-yard fumble recovery touchdown with 1:48 to go against Brother Rice last week erased their 27-22 lead—stunned the Bears just as badly as he had the Warriors by taking the ensuing kickoff 78 yards to the house to give the Hawks a 14-7 lead with 0:42 remaining in the half.

Tommy Vento, who, since throwing 5 touchdown passes in the first half of Harrison’s 54-21 win over Rochester Adams on October 8, has now thrown more interceptions (7) than he has touchdown passes (6) in his last 4 games (odd, because in the 5 games prior, Vento had thrown 14 touchdown passes without an interception in 83 passing attempts) threw his second pick of the afternoon on Harrison’s first possession of the second half.

Berkley would take advantage, going 49 yards in 11 plays—capped by Porter’s 1-yard touchdown dive—to make it 14-13 Hawks with 4:38 left in the 3rd. It was here that Harrison’s Lido Zefi made one of the biggest plays of the day, busting through to block Kyle Braun’s extra point, and the Hawks held their lead, barely.

Today’s game was the first this season in which Tommy Vento failed to throw a touchdown pass. Indeed, as the game moved into the 4th quarter, somewhat amazingly, Vento had yet to complete a single forward pass. That changed when Derek Head caught a Vento screen in the flat and raced 51 yards to the Berkley 1. Freshman Lorenzo Collins blasted over the goal line on the next play to increase the Harrison lead to 21-13 with 9:25 left in the game.

Vento’s only other completion was a 31-yarder to Devin Funchess the next time Harrison had the ball, and it was the big play in a 52-yard, 7-play scoring drive for the Hawks. Austin Hunter got the touchdown on an 11-yard run with 5:00 left, giving Harrison a 28-13 lead.

Is this the Hawks year? Consider this: with enough time left for Berkley to still mount a comeback, Harrison again fumbled the ball deep in their own territory, but this time the football bounced right into the hands of Burbridge who motored for a key first down, enabling the Hawks ran out the clock.

Is this the Hawks year? DeLaSalle’s coming calling next week. We shall see…