Fowlerville staves off Ionia comeback bid, earns win No. 5

Anthony Odoardi
Livingston Daily

FOWLERVILLE – It was the perfect night for the Fowlerville football team to earn win No. 5.

The Gladiators (5-2 overall, 3-2 CAAC White) used extra motivation thanks to it being homecoming to push them over the edge for a 20-16 win over an Ionia (2-5, 0-5) team that, regardless of the records, has given them an all-out battle in each of the previous four seasons.

Each of those previous four games were decided by four points or less, meaning the narrow six-point triumph was actually the widest margin of victory for either team in the past five meetings. Each of those games, however, had gone in Ionia’s favor.

Not Friday night.

Trevor Brock (56) and the Fowlerville defense took on Ionia on Friday night.

Alex Brownlee got the scoring started for the Gladiators on a 16-yard run. Although the ensuing two-point conversion failed, Brownlee’s touchdown would be the start of the Gladiators scoring 20 unanswered points before halftime to take a commanding lead.

Brownlee, who totaled 121 yards and two rushing touchdowns on 22 carries, found the end zone again in the second, and Bailey Edwards’ kick made it 13-0 in favor of the Glads. Quarterback Geoff Knaggs, who took the place of Nick Semke in the contest, then found Josh Nabozny on a 60-yard TD pass.

Knaggs would finish the game 9-for-16 passing with 130 yards and the score. Nabozny, meanwhile, hauled in three catches for 74 yards and was the only receiver to find the end zone. Wyatt Thomas was the Glads’ second-leading rusher behind Brownlee with 71 yards on 12 totes.

The offense had a solid night even without Semke, totaling 357 yards. However, things stalled on that side of the ball in the second half, and it allowed the Bulldogs, who had owned a four-game win streak over Fowlerville, to claw their way back into the game.

Two long touchdown passes in the third and fourth quarters cut Fowlerville’s lead to just six.

But the Gladiators would hold for one of their most important wins of the season.

This year’s Gladiators are now eligible for the playoffs and will have their picture forever reside in the locker room for achieving the feat. But there remains unfinished business, as the Glads won’t guarantee their playoff spot unless they earn a sixth win.

They now get two chances to do it.

That’s crucial for the Glads ,too, because they have a meeting with a Corunna team that is thus far 6-1 next week. That will be a difficult game to win, but the loss still affords them the opportunity to come back against a Lansing Waverly team in Week 9 that is 2-5.