Chris Jackett
September 19, 2013
Reprinted with permission of the Novi News
Novi football coach Jeff Burnside told his Wildcats to look at the season as a trio of three-game series. For the first time since 2008, Novi has started 2-1.
That was also the last time the Wildcats made the playoffs, in the KLAA’s inaugural season. Now, with a 31-13 victory over visiting Plymouth Salem (0-3, 0-1 Central), Novi (2-1, 1-0 Central) is exhibiting signs of their KVC selves.
“We’re going to play old school Novi football,” Burnside said. “We’re going to play defense and run the ball.”
The grinding style of play allowed the Wildcats to amass 378 rushing yards on 65 attempts from nine different student-athletes. Salem had 38 rushing yards.
Among the leaders on the day were senior Austin Racicot (152 yards on six runs), junior Jalen Ward (118 yards on 27 runs) and senior Jeff Baker (45 yards on 10 runs).
But it was senior Mark Ryan (19 yards on seven runs) who got things rolling with two first-half touchdowns that combined with senior Bryan Klosterman’s 35-yard field goal for a 17-0 halftime lead.
“The offensive line executed tonight,” Burnside said. “It’s a good victory. It’s an 18-point victory, (but) we made a lot of mistakes.”
Ward and Racicot each tacked on third-quarter touchdowns on 3- and 78-yard runs, respectively, to run the score up to 31-0 before Salem sophomore Shaw Lyall recovered a fumble by a temporarily injured Ward and returned it 33 yards for a touchdown with 23.7 seconds left in the third quarter.
Junior Devin Cameron added a 1-yard run for Salem with 6:29 left in the game to cut the deficit to 31-13, but the point-after kick by senior Alex Kenrick was blocked by Racicot to suck any remaining momentum out of the Rocks.
“It’s not like we gave it to them. They fought for that,” Burnside said of Salem’s two late scores.
The numbers paint a good picture of how things went for the Rocks, as Novi had a 377-123 advantage in yards gained, a 19-8 advantage in first downs and even restricted penalties to an equal number at six, although Salem lost eight more yards in the process at 54.
Despite the offensive numbers, the defenses had some solid stats, as well. The Rocks had seven tackles for losses, compared to Novi’s four, but many were due to the individual efforts of a few. Ten of Cameron’s 12 total tackles were done solo, as were eight of Lyall’s nine.
For the Wildcats, Ryan had 10 and Racicot seven, but just three apiece were solo, as Novi’s defenders regularly rushed sophomore quarterback Alex Nicholson (6-for-20, 85 yards, one interception).