Last week at Watson Field, the defenses took center stage, but Friday night when Waterford Mott came to town it was the offenses time to shine as the Cosairs took down the AP Division II top-ranked school Walled Lake Western 47-37.

Mott came into tonight’s game with a 2-1 record scoring big victories over Milford and Walled Lake Central while narrowly falling to Lakeland during the second week of the season.

Mott head coach Chris Fahr gave credit for his team’s offense outburst to his strength and conditioning coach Guy Monarch. “I have to thank our strength coach Guy Monarch, he worked them all off season on our strength and conditioning and pushing and pushing and pushing them, (the offensive output) is not possible without the sweat equity they put in during the offseason.”

Neither team was able to generate much offense during their first possessions but the show was on as both schools scored on their next three drives with Mott converting on a 1-yard run by Marcus Guerrero, a 17-yard pass to Matt Bradley from David McCullum and a 10-yard pass to Ashton Franklin while Western got on the board with a 53-yard Sam Johnson pass to Kevin Jackson, a 4-yard run by Johnson and a 32-yard pass to Jackson again leaving the game time 21-21 with 8:01 left in the second quarter.

Mott’s next drive looked to be over with an interception by Western however the play was nullified by a roughing the passer call and the Cosairs continued down the field scoring on a 28-yard run by Guerrero putting Mott up 28-21 with 1:23 left in the first half.

Western was unable to maintain the back-and-forth scoring however after a fumbled snap gave the Cosairs the ball at the Western 20 and set-up another Mott touchdown pass this time a 22-yarder.

The third quarter started with Western taking the ball down the field and converting on a 27-yard field goal with 6:35 left in the third to bring the score to 35-24. On the ensuing kickoff, the Warrior defense stood tall and forced only the second Cosair punt of the evening putting the Western offense in a great position to bring the game to within one score.

It wasn’t to be however as Johnson completed a pass down to the Mott 2-yard line where the ball was fumbled and Waterford recovered stopping drive and putting Mott back in the driver’s seat.

Mott actually scored twice on their next possession as a 51-yard touchdown run by Guerrero was called back by a personal foul and an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty before Waterford was able to push the ball across the line for good with a 2-yard run by Guerrero making it 41-24.

Western pulled it back to a 10-point game after a 1-yard touchdown run by Jakkell Moore-Wells make it 41-31 in favor of Mott with 10-minutes left in the game but the Warriors couldn’t get any closer trading scores again with Mott hitting pay dirt on an 11-yard run by McCullum and Western finding the end zone on a 17-yard Johnson pass to Justin Thomas making the final Waterford Mott 47 Walled Lake Western 37.

Afterwards, Fahr also talked about some key stops that his defense made over the course of the night. “That is the biggest thing, getting stops and making big plays. (Walled Lake Western) are a great offense with great coaches and great players so they are going to score we just have to make sure that we don’t make it easy for them, make them earn it and for the most part I think we did an ok job at it.”

The Cosairs were led offensively by quarterback David McCullum who was 21 of 30 for 340 yards with three touchdowns via the air and gained 82 yards on the ground on 10 carries scoring one touchdown. Marcus Guerrero picked up 173 yards and 3 touchdowns on the ground in 29 attempts.

The receiving corps was led by Ashton Franklin who had six receptions for 116 yards and one touchdown and Hardy who also had 116 yards on five receptions.

Offensively for Walled Lake Western Sam Johnson was 13 of 21 for 235 yards and 3 touchdowns while gaining 16 yards on eight carries with a touchdown on the ground. Kevin Johnson had three catches for 97 yards and two touchdowns while Justin Thomas had seven catches for 78 yards and one touchdown. The Warriors leading rusher on the night was Jakkell Moore-Wells who had 69 yards on 12 carries and found the end zone one time.

With the win, Waterford moves to 3-1 on the season and is looking ahead to next week’s contest at Waterford Kettering while Walled Lake Western falls to 3-1 on the season and travels to Walled Lake Northern on Friday.