by Dave Wolf – WSJM Sports Director
The 2022 regular season has ended, the first real “normal” season we’ve had since before the pandemic.
Here are some thoughts to wrap up the year.
SMAC – Southwestern Michigan Athletic Conference
St. Joseph is the outright league champion, the Bears first such outright champion since 2008. Sure the Bears has shared a conference or division title since then, but it’s the first one that St. Joe can say it’s all theirs, which it is. St. Joe started the first five quarters of the season very rough, falling in the opener to Traverse City Central 49-28, then were down 22-0 in the first quarter of the Bears second game against Hudsonville Unity Christian. But St. Joe manage to find the right switch and have been a juggernaut since. Rolling off 8 straight wins, and only one of those games was still in doubt in the late stages of the final quarter, their 13-12 win at Portage Central. The triple headed running attack of Trey McGinnis, Joron Brown and Thomas Moore and the St. Joe offensive line just continued to hammer the opposition.
The Bears run through the season has put two of their five targeted trophies in the display case. The Anchor Trophy, going to the winner of the game with Lakeshore, and the SMAC Conference Championship Trophy, which was earned with the win at BCC on Friday. The Bears now focus on the District and Regional trophies, when they face old nemesis and perennial state power East Grand Rapids. An unusual move for the Bears and Pioneers to meet in the pre-district, after all the last two times these teams played was in the 2007 State Semifinals and the 2009 Regional Finals.
Now part of the problem for such a spread-out district for the Bears was lack of other area Division 3 teams in the playoffs, and the surprisingly subpar season from the Lakeshore Lancers. Second year head coach Danny Thompson led Lakeshore to a 6-3 regular season (7-4 overall) in 2021, winning their opening round game against Zeeland East before falling to St. Joe in the District Finals. But things got worse. Starting 2022 with a 51-point loss to Zeeland West (66-15), the most points the Lancers have surrendered since at 64-28 loss to Berrien Springs in 1986. Lancer fans weren’t worried yet because everyone knows Zeeland West does that to most teams. But Lancer fans did worry after falling to Kalamazoo United a week later. Things looked up after winning three of the next four games with wins over Mattawan, Kalamazoo Central and Battle Creek Lakeview. However, the win over Lakeview felt like a loss, and it realistically ended their season when starting quarterback Ryan Korfmacher broke his leg on a non-contact injury late in the third quarter and was out for the season.
Not only was Korfmacher out, their first game to try to break in a new, in this case, two new quarterbacks came in their rivalry game with St. Joe. St. Joe kept pounding the ball, which they’ve done to everybody and won the annual War by the Shore with a 42-14 win. The Lancers only scored 20 points in their last 8 quarters of their season to end at 3-6. Its only the second time Lakeshore has finished with a losing record since 1988. However even with the Lancers offensive woes, the defensive problems were just as bad, the 315 points allowed is the most points ever given up by Lakeshore in the 66 year history of the program.
Lakeland Conference
The 2022 season brought back a familiar name with some familiar members as the Lakeland conference reformed with 4 one-time members, Berrien Springs, Brandywine, Buchanan and Dowagiac, as well as Benton Harbor, who were back in a league since leaving the SMAC after the 2015 school year. The small 5 member conference was a perfect place for the Tigers to get back to playing a conference schedule and also meant that they didn’t need to travel all over the state to find 9 games. Benton Harbor, came in off of a 2-7 season in 2021, and doubled the number of wins, and were a possible playoff contender, especially only allowing an average of 18.7 points against per game. But the Tigers offense was only 7 points better than their defense. So the Tigers find themselves on the outside looking in once again.
Elsewhere in the Lakeland, three of the five-member conference have advanced to the postseason. Lakeland Conference champion Buchanan who finished the season at 6-3 will travel to take on 8-1 Constantine. Brandywine who snuck into the dance will head to Lawton. The last time these two teams met was last year, when the Blue Devils won 63-14 when Lawton went on but fell in the Division 7 state championship game. Berrien Springs 6-2) will opens their playoff run against Hopkins (5-4).
SAC – Southwestern Athletic Conference
The SAC’s membership was tweaked a little this season with the addition of Allegan and South Haven for football, as well as Holland Black River and Bridgman in other sports. The SAC-Lakeshore Division was and still is Constantine’s, rolling to an 8-1 regular season and Division title. Leaving Watervliet, Allegan, South Haven, Parchment, and Kalamazoo United to just slug it out for 2nd. Watervliet and United did officially tie for 2nd, but we’ll count the Panthers as the 2nd place finisher with their 14-0 win over United. Watervliet debuted a new artificial turf field and a defense that was 2nd in conference play with just 99 points against. It was nice to see Allegan and South Haven finally leaving the Wolverine Conference. The Rams joined the BCS for 2021 and finished with a 6-3 record, and making the playoffs. However two of the rams wins in 2021 were Covid “Forfeit” wins over Allegan and Comstock. The Rams this season did start on positive note with a 24-7 win over former Wolverine foe Dowagiac, things looked up after week 1. The problem is the season is 9 weeks long. South Haven lost their next 5 games before pulling off a 22-14 upset win over playoff qualifier Watervliet 22-14 at Historic Radcliffe Field. During the streak, the Rams just missed out on a PAT and fell to Allegan 29-28. We are hoping to see the return of Coloma to the SAC next year, the Comets sat out the 2022 season and fielded only a JV and Freshman team citing low numbers and inexperience on the varsity roster. Which was the same case for Hartford of the Southwest 10.
Lawton again looks like in prime shape to make another deep run towards Ford Field.
Southwest Michigan 8-Man
It took a little while for 8-man football to take hold in Southwest Michigan, but it now has deep roots in the area. The team of Our Lady of the Lake, Michigan Lutheran, and Countryside Academy, known as the Twin Cities Sharks wasn’t formed until 2021 after then Lake Michigan Catholic sat out the COVID-19 season of 2020. After sitting out 2020, and going winless in 2021. The Sharks finally bit off a pair of victories. Wins over Wyoming Lee and Bloomingdale kept the Sharks from going winless, but the wins were against two winless teams themselves. However Twin Cities had three games where they lost by one score, and given the quick strike possibilities in 8 man football, those three L’s could have been W’s with a little more experience.
8-Man Football has saved the football program at Eau Claire. After 10 straight losing seasons, including three 0-9 years. The Beavers made the jump to 8 man in 2020 and have been getting better every year. Eau Claire went 2-4 in 20, 3-6 in 2021 before completing this season a 5-4, the first winning season since 2011. Another program continuing to improve thanks to the switch to 8-man is the combined effort of River Valley and New Buffalo, knows as the Red Arrow Raiders. Like the Sharks, this is the 2nd year of the cooperative program. But they have found a little more success than the Sharks. The NB/RV group went 4-4, 4-5 before going 6-3 this season.
One school that has been very successful in 8-man isn’t really allowed to. Bridgman is what the MHSAA classifies as “Too Big” to be playing 8-man football. The idea behind 8 man football was for small schools to be able to fill up a roster for football with about third less of the number of players you would need for a regular 11 man team. It was intended for Class D schools. However Bridgman made the jump so the MHSAA says you can’t play in the playoffs, but you sure can affect the playoff field. Bridgman completed a second straight 9-0 regular season, and the reward is a week 10 exhibition game with Grand Rapids Northpointe Christian.
The MHSAA made the decision for 8-man football so schools could keep football, which is exactly what Bridgman did, they’re now being punished for saving their program. They built a new football facility a few years ago. The Bees work just as hard, they go to camp, two-a-days, lift, get injured, and battle for every yard like everybody else in the state does. But still the MHSAA only has half the 32 teams total make the playoff for 8-man football, 16 in each division, they also play one less week than the 11-man counterparts. Making it that much harder to qualify for the playoffs in 8-man football than it is in 11-man.
