By John Raffel
MaxPreps.com
Victor Sanders had the kicking day of his life Saturday at Michigan State's Spartan Stadium. He couldn't have picked a better time for it.
In the 28th annual Michigan All-Star football game, sponsored by the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association (MHSFCA), Sanders did all of the scoring in a 9-0 victory for the East team.
Sanders, from Westland John Glenn, booted field goals of 32 yards at 2:45 of the first quarter, 42 yards at 11:07 of the second and 32 yards at 4:55 of the third.
“I've never kicked three field goals in a game,” Sanders said. “That, 42 yards, is my longest field goal too.”
Did he ever dream he might kick three field goals in a game?
“No, not at all,” Sanders said. “I never dreamed that I would make this game. I just relaxed and focused on making them through.”
The East led 6-0 at halftime. Most of the second half was played under a steady rain.
“It can go either way. Sometimes you'll have two offenses that are amazing and can light up the scoreboard,” Jordan Langs, defensive back for Climax-Scotts, said. “In one week, you can't really put together an offense that's really that potent. Defense goes around and hits people. That's why sometimes the defense looks more polished than the offense. It's easier to put that in within a week.”
At halftime, the East had 104 yards of total offense compared to 38 for the West. After three quarters, the West had minus 10 yards rushing compared to 140 yards for the East.
“Both teams had some great athletes. We kind of wondered if it might be high scoring to be honest with you,” said East assistant coach Chris Bell, head coach at Lake Orion. “But all the All-Star games tend to be a little more sloppy and the guys' timing is a little off. The weather definitely made it a low-scoring game.”
“Both teams thought there would be a little more offense and a little more scoring,” said East assistant Dave Mifsud, head coach at Dearborn. “It's tough when you only have one week to practice. Both defenses played great. We're pretty happy with how things went.”
The second-half rain, “probably impacted them a little more,” Mifsud said. “We had poor field position so we definitely weren't going to try throwing the ball in the rain.”
Sanders also handled his team's punting with four boots for 124 total yards.
The West got inside the East 20 late in the game but fumbled the ball away.
“The rain had something to do with (the low scoring game),” said East assistant Mike Powell, head coach at Warren Cousino. “Unfortunately, we made a few mistakes in the first half. We were driving and it put us back. Our kicker did a great job. We thought we could run the ball because we had some great quarterbacks and great running backs.”
For the game, the East had a 18-8 advantage in first downs, a whopping 185-5 margin in net yards rushing and a 218-110 cushion in total yards. The West, forced to put the ball in the air late in the game, had a 105-33 yardage advantage in passing.
Caulton Ray of Birmingham Brother Rice led the East in rushing with 78 net yards while Glen Winston of Denby Tech had 77 yards. The West's leading ground gainer was Jarred Sherrod of Portage Central with only 21 net yards rushing. West quarterback Adam Follett of Alma was 7-of-16 in passing for 70 yards.
Defensively, Zach Line of Oxford led the East with eight tackles. Ryan Egnatuk of Rockford led the West with 14 tackles while Matt Zajac of Holt had 10 tackles.
“One of the exciting things about the game is that you're not real sure of the other team's personnel,” said West assistant coach Jim Webb, the head coach at Cadillac. “When you have 88 great athletes out there, you're not sure what's going to happen. Both teams played very hard. Obviously, we would have liked to have put more points on the board. But you have to be proud of both teams.”
“In an All-Star game you only have one week and from an offensive perspective, it's real difficult to try to put a lot in and have great execution,” said another West assistant coach Charlie Otlewski, head skipper at Haslett. “We were always a little bit off from left to right in some of our passes. I thought we had good protection up front. We had some timing issues.
“When we were down by six, we still felt pretty good.”
As for the rain in the second half, “when we got to the fourth quarter and we had to put the ball in the air a little more, it might have affected us,” Webb said. “They were happy to run the ball. We had to do what we could to shut them down.”
The East has a 15-13 lead in the series.
The event features two teams each with 44 players that graduated from high school this year. The East team consists mainly of players from the greater Detroit area and the state's Thumb area. The West team is made up of players from the rest of the state.