WALLED LAKE — When a final win-loss record bears just one setback in the column on the right, there’s certainly something to be celebrated.

Of course, the sting of that loss is a little harsher when it comes just one win shy of a state championship game.

That’s the reality of the Walled Lake Western football program, though, and the 2015 season.

“It was one of the best seasons in program history,” coach Mike Zdebski said last week about his squad.

The Warriors closed out the fall campaign on what felt like a winter afternoon.

Playing Lowell High during an unforgiving snowstorm, the Warriors went back and forth in the Division 2 semifinal before eventually falling 49-34.

Western ended its season at 12-1.

“It was a game of inches all day long,” Zdebski said of the semifinal, played Nov. 21 at Alma College. “It was a game of details.”

The Western coach said there were a series of little things that added up.

“The kids played hard. The coaches did a great job,” he said. “Small things here and there really made the difference.”

Still, the group playing its final game, especially the senior class, certainly left its legacy.

The 9-0 regular season was just the third time a Western team had accomplished that feat, joining the 1999 state championship squad (14-0) and the 1992 team (12-1) that lost in a Class A final.

Led by senior Kyle Thomas, Western set a program record with 522 total points scored, good for more than 40 per game.

Thomas closed the season passing for 2,404 yards and 25 touchdowns to go with his 823 yards rushing and 12 touchdowns.

Over the past three seasons, while most of the current group of seniors were on varsity, Western reeled off a 30-5 record, won three division titles, three conference titles, went 23-2 in Kensington Lakes Activities Association play, and won three city championships.

This was a group that kept the bar at Western elevated to a very high level.

“They were intrinsically motivated to succeed,” Zdebski said. “It was a very good group, an awesome collection of kids we got to work with.”

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