GRASS LAKE – In a season-opening 50-0 win over Royal Oak Shrine on Saturday, Grass Lake took control early in every aspect of the game.
Touchdowns rushing the ball, touchdowns passing the ball, touchdowns on special teams, and a suffocating defense helped the Warriors put up 50 points by halftime while the Knights were never able to get anything going.
A bad snap on a punt led to a Liam Metheringham touchdown for Grass Lake, taking the ball in on a scoop-and-score.
“I was asking coach [Chris] Reul to blitz me on a punt and he didn’t do it, but when I saw the fumbled snap I thought this is the closest I was going to get to it,” Metheringham said. “The punter fell and I was like ‘alright, just beat someone to the pylon.’”
The next attempt by Shrine to punt led to a 69-yard Robby Anderson return for another score.
“We called it to the right, so I was going to the right, but I cut it back,” he said. “I made a few cuts. I did what I could, made it to the open space, and with my speed it’s kind of hard to get me down and track me.”
In the meantime the Warriors offense kept moving the ball. A seven-yard Metheringham touchdown capped off Grass Lake’s opening drive.
“I can’t do anything without my O-line. I owe everything to them,” he said. “Without the way they blocked tonight, I’m not doing half the things I did. I’m incredibly proud of how they played.”
He scored another on a 20-yard run early in the second quarter. Brayden Lape had a pair of touchdown passes to Anderson later in the second quarter.
“Everyone did their job and that’s what we needed to win this game,” Anderson said.
Brodey Miller capped off the first-half scoring with a nine-yard touchdown run.
By halftime, Metheringham had 105 yards rushing on nine carries and he did not touch the ball in the second half.
“It was his coming out party as a running back,” Grass Lake coach Randy Cole said. “He ran hard like he has been in the preseason and it’s great to see him show his skills.”
Lape was 9-of-12 passing for 116 yards.
Grass Lake’s defense held Shrine to 22 total yards in the first half. Knights starting quarterback Caydin Barbato was knocked out of the game on the second drive and Jack Tisko took over and completed four of six passes the rest of the half, as the Grass Lake defense held Shrine to two first downs in the half.
“I thought they adjusted pretty well to different formations and motions and were pretty sound most of the night without giving up too many big plays,” Cole said.
Shrine’s best field position of the first half was the Grass Lake 47 after Barbato had completed a pass to Tisko get get beyond midfield, that the drive stalled out. In the second half the Knights started their opening drive at midfield thanks to a 46-yard Nate Alba kick return, which would have gone for a touchdown had Lape, Grass Lake’s kicker, not made a tackle. That drive got as far as the Warriors’ 24 before a fourth-down attempt was stopped short.
The Knights’ next drive also started near midfield after forcing Grass Lake to punt, but a pair of bad snaps drove Shrine backwards on the next two plays.
With the bad snaps often eating away whatever gains the Shrine offense had made, the Knights lost yardage on four of their 11 offensive drives in the game.
Even when things went wrong for Grass Lake, things still worked out. After the Warriors’ sixth touchdown, a bad snap on the PAT led to holder Jacob Collins having to improvise. He initially looked for running room to the left, but finding none, tossed a jump pass to Metheringham waiting uncovered in the end zone for the two-point conversion.
It’s the Warriors’ largest margin of victory since a 69-12 win over Vandercook Lake in 2018.
“I think everyone should be ready for this team that Grass Lake has because I don’t think a lot of people expected it, but we’re coming,” Metheringham said.
Grass Lake will face Hanover-Horton next week.
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