The Wolves are preparing for their biggest opponent this week after devouring Troy last Friday, 28-0.
The gridiron heroes head to Lake Orion High School Dragon Stadium for a fight for the OAA Red title as both teams go into the game 7-0 and 6-0 in the league.
“It will be a dog fight,” said Kurt Richardson, long-time head coach for the Clarkston Varsity Football team. “It’s a great rivalry. I love playing them. They are a very good team. They are well-coached. It will be fun.”
Senior Nathan Yeloushan added it will be a great game.
“It is definitely the best game of the season,” he said. “We are going to bring our ‘A’ game and be ready for a long game. I expect it will be close.”
This will also be the seniors last game against Lake Orion and for Yeloushan it makes the game even more special.
“It is my first time playing at Lake Orion on varsity,” said Yeloushan, who was moved up during his sophomore year. “Last year we got the best of them by a touchdown. They are hungry this year. The Wolves are hungrier. We need to eat.”
Richardson added the team will be healthy for the first time since the season began.
The Dragons are also prepping for a battle.
“It will be the best defense we’ve seen yet,” said head coach Chris Bell. “They’re a huge upfront offensive line. They pride themselves on their ability to run and come back at you.
The Wolves opened their last home game of the regular season with a 1-yard touchdown by junior running back Ian Eriksen less than four minutes into the game.
It was a struggle on both sides on who would score in the first half. The fans waited until the third quarter when the Wolves would strike again.
While the Colts ran their play on their second down junior Reid Kaminski intercepted the ball with 7:19 on the clock on the 19-yard line.
The ball was handed off to Eriksen on the first down, and he made a run avoiding defense until he broke free for open space. He finished the 81-yard run in the endzone. He followed it with scoring a 2-point conversion to put the boys, 14-0.
“Not to take anything away from Troy but we were pretty uninspired in the first half,” said Richardson. “Then, Ian broke those long ones, and we came back.”
“The second half was much better,” Yeloushan added. “The first half was rough. The intensity wasn’t where it needed to be. We weren’t phyically dominating.”
He noted defensive line keeping Troy at zero was big for them.
“It was a great challenge to keep them at zero,” Yeloushan said. “It was a great accomplishment.”
Eriksen scored two more times for Clarkston. During the fourth quarter he opened with a 93-yard run, which he broke into 1,000 rushing yards for the season. He scored again minutes later on a 62-yard run.
Eriksen rushed the ball 295 yards on 16 carries putting his total for the season at 1,282 yards on 157 carries.
Chris Calvano rushed 25 yards and Ben Kaminsky rushed the ball 33 yards – both were on four carries.
Calvano led defense with six tackles. Troy had a loss of nine yards on his two tackles. Dylan Hancook had five tackles with a loss of two yards for Troy.
“We played good defensely tonight. We made big plays,” said Richardson. “They came out big when we needed them to. I wasn’t happy with the big long drive they had. They converted four straight third downs. There were a lot of good things and a lot of things to work on.”
Friday’s game is 7 p.m. at 495 East Scripps.
Contribution by Gabriel Ouzonian