Fenton High varsity football team plays in Ann Arbor
PHOTO Benny Burke
September 9, 2021
To kick off Fenton High’s 2021 football season, the team made the trip to the Big House— University of Michigan’s football stadium— to face off against Midland Dow on a hot steamy day.
The seats were minimally filled with excited fans from both sides, and the members of each team’s marching band. Compared to the stadium’s normal capacity, it was a small showing at best— but still an important ordeal for both teams.
Starting the first quarter, Fenton scored the first touchdown (TD) off of a fumble by Midland Dow. Midland quickly answered this however, by scoring two TD’s and easily making it past Fenton’s defensive line. That same line would prove to be a problem for Fenton in the game as a whole. This put the score in their favor, giving themselves a 13–7 lead. The score remained the same throughout the final minutes of the first quarter.
Quickly after the first quarter, both teams rushed out to the field to continue the game. At 7:19 and 4:26, Midland scores their third and fourth TD’s further solidifying their lead and making it 29–7. Fenton did have a response for this and scored a TD with 25 seconds left making it 29–14, the closest they ever came to a comeback.
As a testament to the heat, one of the officials was forced out of the game to rehydrate, which shorted them of the normal four referees. During half time both teams cooled down in the locker room and let the marching band go to work on the field. Midland Dow seemed to have stayed ready and limber, but this wasn’t the case for Fenton.
Throughout the third quarter, Midland Dow worked on lengthening their lead and did exactly that. Touchdowns were scored at 8:15 and 7:13. These touchdowns were crushing for the Tigers, and were points they didn’t recover from. The third quarter ended with a 43–14 lead for Midland Dow. During halftime, Fenton did not make sure to stretch and get ready. Three injuries occurred just in those ten minutes of play.
For the duration of the entire game, Fenton’s defense struggled mightily to shut down Midland Dow’s offense and it seemed very hard for Fenton to hold onto the ball. Countless offsides, fumbles, interceptions and flags were called against Fenton which didn’t help them gain a lead and ultimately lead to their loss.
In the fourth quarter, Fenton still failed to score and Midland Dow scored one more TD to put the game in the history books at 49–14.
