Northville Youth Football Association

The Northville Stallions hosted the Novi Bobcats on Saturday, September 24. The day offered quintessential football weather -an especially crisp 52 degrees with drizzle at the 9AM game time. The young Stallions team came into the contest with a 2-1 record following their win the previous week at the Garden City Cougars. They looked fired up looking to send the division leading Bobcats back to their den with their first loss of the season. But in the end, it was not meant to be.  The Stallions gave up an early lead and spent the rest of the contest playing catch-up. The Stallions gave their all chasing the Bobcats closely until the final minutes of the game. The 100-point shootout was non-stop action.

The Novi Bobcat offense was purring at the start of the game. Novi ripped off several long runs resulting in 3 touchdowns in the early going to start up 19 – 0. The Northville defense was able to force a couple of third down situations but just couldn’t get off the field.  In the early series Northville had nice tackles by #3, Luca Ghannam, #64 Andrew Paulson and #77 Harrison Katarski. In contrast to Novi’s fast offensive start, Northville’s first two series resulted in turnovers on downs. #19 Caden TenBroek, #12 Paxton Mehram, #25 Connon Frescoln had some strong runs but were unable to string together first downs or hit the end zone in the early going.

On the third offensive series the football gods were smiling upon Northville. #8 Emmett Goerke picked up a huge third down conversion to keep the drive alive. From there Frescoln was able to punch in a score to put the Stallions on the board. #25 Declan McGrail was able to convert the run PAT to bring the score to 19 – 7. Novi answered with another quick strike touchdown but were unable to convert the PAT thanks to a big-time tackle by #9 Sullivan Horgan. The contest was 25 – 7 in favor of the Novi Bobcats. Thankfully the Stallions were able to keep their offense in stride going into halftime with another touchdown run by Frescoln. That drive featured a nice pass catch by the sure handed McGrail and another big third down conversion by Horgan. This left the score at 13 – 25 going into halftime.

The second half of the game started off with an electrifying long touchdown scamper by Mehram to bring the score within striking distance at 25 – 19. Novi answered again with another one of their signature long reverse-field touchdown runs which eluded several Northville tacklers. Back on offense Northville kept pace when the tough running #1 Jaad Salem punched one in for a touchdown and a score of 31 – 25. Salem followed up his touchdown with a nice tackle at the start of the next defensive series.  On Novi’s next series Northville put them into a 4th down situation on a touchdown saving tackle by Ghannam. But Novi was able to convert a critical 4th down and widen their lead to 37 – 25.

Northville just kept battling with all their heart on the gridiron. Their next drive saw a primetime 20-yard run up the gut by #20 Brennan Devitt on a crucial 4th and short opportunity. TenBroeck was able to follow that up with a touchdown score on a sweet fake handoff stretching the field to the right and cut up to the house. So Northville once again cut into Novi’s lead bringing the score to 37 – 31. Novi’s highly talented #18 Jack Abraham responded with another touchdown answer and stretched the lead to 43 – 31. But Frescoln answered Abraham’s touchdown with another one of his own for the highlight reel, score 43 - 37. Novi scored quickly on its next drive. With clock starting to become an issue Northville marched on another scoring drive which featured another completed pass, this time to Horgan. That drive was topped off by another touchdown with some razzle dazzle by Frescoln. With 2:09 on the clock, in the 6th and final period, the score was 51 – 43. Northville needed to get a big stop on Novi to get the ball back and score quickly. In the final drive the Novi offense kept on the attack. In Northville’s final defensive series #13 Abraham Frazier had a tackle for loss and Novi scored another touchdown with no time left to end the contest at 57 – 43 in favor of the visiting Novi Bobcats.

Northville Stallions left the contest with a 2 - 2 record while the division leading Novi Bobcats remain undefeated at 4 - 0.