A piece of the crown

Evart senior quarterback Adam Vincent runs for a first down on a fake punt while also avoiding the official during FridayÕs Highland Conference contest against Marion. The Wildcats beat the Eagles 19-6.

MARION — This wasn’t their American history class, nor even a world history class.

This was more like recent Michigan high school football playoff history.

The lecture was about how many teams with a loss or two eventually played for a state title.

For the Evart football team, the lesson took.

The Wildcats, coming off their first loss of the season last week to Beal City, rebounded to beat Marion 19-6 in a Highland Conference contest Friday night.

The victory gives Evart (8-1 overall, 5-1 Highland) a piece of its first Highland title in a decade as it shares the title with the aforementioned Aggies.

“It feels good and it’s the first time in a long time,” Evart junior running back Eric Hasse said. “We didn’t make the mistakes like we did last week.”

For the Evart head coach Pat Craven, the conference title is a reward for the hard work this team has put in.

“These kids deserved the opportunity to play for a title tonight and compete for a title tonight. They did that,” Craven said. “This is great.”

Back to the history lesson. After the loss to Beal City Saturday, the Wildcats talked about some of the mistakes made and things that happened on Monday.

After that, Craven pulled the records of recent state championship teams, trying to show his team how few of them were undefeated.

“A lot of them had one or two losses,” he said. “I was on an undefeated team in high school and I would have gladly traded one of those regular season wins for a playoff win.

“The point was all those teams lost games and still ended up playing for a state title.”

While that is a long, long way down the road, Evart is in the playoffs — likely Division 6 — and will learn its first-round opponent on Sunday.

Marion will also be a playoff participant, but is limping a bit into the postseason.

The Eagles (6-3) have lost their last two games and lost two of their better players Friday night to injury, including senior Kam Cooper.

“Any time you lose someone like Kam, it’s not only a physical loss but an emotional one, too, because he’s such a great leader,” Marion coach Kurt Gillespie said. “The rest of the kids stepped up and kept fighting … they didn’t shut down.”

Evart controlled things early as the Wildcats got aggressive on their first drive.

They moved the ball down the field, including two fourth-down conversions and scored on a 2-yard run by Tyler Cass midway through the quarter.

“I wasn’t as aggressive last week with play calling as I wanted to be, but we changed that this week,” Craven said. “Field position was so big in this game, too, with the conditions that those fourth-down conversions were huge.”

Marion would also move the ball well between the 20s but could not punch it in the end zone when a score was needed.

In fact, the scoreboard stayed 6-0 into the fourth quarter when the Wildcats got some breathing room on a 44-yard run by Hasse just 1:46 in to make it 12-0.

“The running backs just followed the blocks all night and did what we needed to do,” Hasse said.

Marion’s best chance to tie the game with 3:19 remaining when a snap over the head of the Evart punter was recovered by the Eagles on the Wildcats’ 9-yard line.

An incomplete pass and two keepers by quarterback Danny Michell got the ball to the 3-yard line on fourth down but a fumbled pitch was recovered by the Wildcats to end the threat.

“We need to look back and I need to see what will get us in the end zone,” Gillespie said.

“When we get opportunities there next week, we don’t falter.”

Evart sealed it on a 41-yard run by Hasse with 2:38 remaining to make it 19-0 before Marion got a 25-yard touchdown pass from Michell to Aaron Johnson with 3.2 seconds left.

Hasse led Evart with 177 yards on 20 carries, putting him over 1,000 yards for the season. Keith Mitchell and Zack McKinstry paced the defense with 15 tackles each.

Michell led Marion with 109 yards on 25 carries, while completing 6 of 13 passes for 91 yards. Elliot Wilson led the defense with 10 tackles, while Taylor Brothwell had seven and Rob Kolhaus six.