Grand Rapids Christian 6 Forest Hills Eastern 14
This game up was a defensive struggle between the Eagles and Hawks on a cloudy
evening at FHE Stadium. The Hawks first try on offense was not fancy eventually, after
12 plays, FHE pushed the ball into the endzone for the TD making the score 6-0 Hawks.
GRC turned the ball over on an interception on its first drive putting the Eagle defense
back on the field. A beautiful sequence featuring a Josiah Gurley TFL, a Zeke Sare
sack, and a Javi Cummings stuff forced FHE to punt. James Veldheer picked up the
long punt, made a couple of Hawks miss, and then sprinted down the left sideline for a
huge 56-yard return! The Eagle offense was able to finish the drive when Bradley
Nuiver found an Wyatt Stuit for the 11-yard TD throw. The 2-point try was unsuccessful
keeping score knotted at 6-6 early in the second quarter.
On the Hawks next series, Isaac James set the tone for the Eagle D with a tackle in the
backfield on the first play. Two good plays in pass coverage by Stuit and Sare forced the
Hawks off the field on fourth down. The Eagles offense wasn’t able to get going and was
forced to punt. The FHE offense also wasn’t doing much until their QB connected over
the top of the defense for a long TD pass. The two-point conversion was good making
the score 14-8 at halftime.
The third quarter expired with neither team doing much of anything offensively. Early in
the fourth quarter, the GRC offense found some rhythm in the pass game with Nuiver
throwing to Jacob Burgess and Cooper Brisbane convert two third downs. The Eagles
eventually got down to the 5-yard line but a fourth down pass from there fell incomplete.
The Eagles D worked hard to get the Eagles O back on the field, and the Hawks were
eventually sent off after a huge fourth down sack by Zeke Sare. Unfortunately, by that
time, only 3 seconds remained on the game clock, and the Eagles final play came up
short of the endzone. The final score was the same as the halftime score, 14-6 FHE.
It was a tough day for the offense as the team couldn’t manage to get traction in the
running game. Bradley Nuiver completed 13 of 24 passes on the night, with James
Veldheer (5 catches) and Wyatt Stuit (4 catches) the main receivers, but yards were
hard to come by. Defensively, Zeke Sare had 9 tackles including 2 sacks, and James
Veldheer had 8 tackles. Javi Cummings and Josiah Gurley each had 2 tackles for loss.
Next week Thursday will feature a second consecutive bird-on-bird matchup as the
West Catholic Falcons come to Eagles Stadium. Come on out at 6:00PM to support the
team. Go Eagles!