TRAVERSE CITY — Traverse City Central had more than candy bars in its bag of treats.
The Trojans reached into the playbook and unleashed a fake extra point that proved to be the difference as Central avenged a loss to Traverse City West a week ago by winning 15-13 in in Friday’s Division 2 district semifinal football playoff game at Thirlby Field in Traverse City.
“We’ve been kind of saving it in the arsenal for a big game like this,” TCC junior holder Carson Spica said. “We were very tempted to use it last week. That was also important game, but we looked ahead to this week, and this one’s much more important because we’re going to be moving on to next week.”
Spica hit Peyton Waller for a two-point conversion after Central’s second touchdown to turn a one-point game into a two-score contest.
“We were waiting to use that play,” TC Central head coach Eric Schugars said. “We practice that play every week. They’re like, when are we going to run it? I go, ‘Just wait.’ We talked about running it last week, and I go, ‘No, we don’t need to run it yet.’ This was the right time to run it, and they executed it.”
Spica missed school with an illness Wednesday and Thursday, just watching practice Thursday. He suited up Friday and threw a pass that what would help decide the game.
“We knew (Drew) Esper was going to be coming off the edge hard, and so I got down and had to make sure my knee wasn’t on the ground, or else I’d have been down,” Spica said. “I fake putting the ball on the tee and then roll out to my right. It was a run-pass option, and I saw their defensive back started charging down to me, so last second I flipped it up to Waller, and he made a play.”
The third-quarter play helped turn what was a 7-6 game into a 15-6 Trojans lead.
West won last week’s TC Patriot Game 21-20 by blocking an extra point in overtime, then converting on its own PAT after Drew Esper’s third rushing TD for the victory.
Again, special teams were a big deciding factor as the teams played each other for the second consecutive week.
“We weren’t able to execute on special teams tonight,” said TC West head coach James Wagner, who had multiple people in the crowd dress as him for Halloween, including his trademark red mustache. “But there’s a lot of different things in there that we didn’t capitalize on. We found some momentum there in the fourth and found some things that were working when the clock hit zero on us and time ran out.”
Rutger Feeney got a hand on Nick Klein’s extra point, which made it over the crossbar anyway to pull the Titans within two points with 10:13 remaining after Brayden Tillman hit Aiden Jacobs for a one-handed touchdown catch on a corner fade route
That wasn’t the case for Camden Tkach’s 43-yard field goal attempt with 34 seconds left that would have put TC West (5-5) up a point. Waller got a hand on it and the kick came up well short.
TC Central (6-4) led 7-0 on an 80-yard receiving touchdown by Trent Gle, who snagged a Turnwald pass over the middle, evaded a tackler and outraced the Titan defense for the game’s opening score with 6:58 left in the first.
“He’s a dynamic kid, and you can see when you get the ball in his hands, boom, there he goes,” Schugars said. “That was literally just a 5-yard hitch, and kid takes a little move and he’s up the field in a heartbeat. … Last week we gave up an 80-yarder. This week we got the 80-yarder.”
Gle was injured in the second quarter. He suffered a broken collarbone earlier this season and had just come back, only to hurt the same shoulder on an 8-yard catch along the sideline.
“He came in, huge play, probably made us win that game,” Turnwald said. “Shout out to my best friend, Trent. Love him. I hope he heals up soon.”
West answered several drives later with a 13-play possession, going back to the wildcat offense that was successful week before after Tillman suffered a suspected concussion. Esper ran 10 times on the drive, including a 1-yard plunge to close it out. The extra point wasn’t successful, leaving West behind 7-6, a score that’d hold up at halftime.
Central threatened to score late in the second quarter before time ran out, but took some of that momentum into the third quarter, taking the second half’s opening drive 65 yards as Turnwald ran five times and completed a pass to Brady Ripmaster for 15 yards on third-and-10 to keep the drive going. Ultimately, the possession ended in a Turnwald 10-yard TD run when the Trojans lined up for what looked like it’s be a Carter Gle extra point attempt, but ended in Waller’s hands from Spica.
The Halloween night game featured numerous spectators dressed in costumes, as well as West’s band and both teams’ cheerleaders. West’s cheer squad all dressed as different Care Bears.
“I couldn’t imagine it going in a better way,” Turnwald said. “We love close games like this. I love everyone on this team. Those guys across town, respect for them, too. They’re all great guys, but we deserved this win. We worked hard for it, and obviously we came out on top.”
Carter Gle and Esper were trading stories near midfield after the game, recalling how almost every game they played since youth football was close.
Turnwald rushed for 103 yards and a TD on 19 carries and completed six passes for 130 yards and a score.
It’s TC Central’s first playoff win since a 2021 run to the Division 2 state finals.
“Our first playoff win a while,” Turnwald said. “To do it against these guys, too, which just feels awesome. Means a lot to us.”
“It’s just a great feeling, man,” Waller said, “after losing three years in a row, just coming back and getting that win, keeping our season going, especially as a senior, living to see another day. To end their season, keep ours going is just a great feeling.”
Central’s defense played much differently than last week, when Esper gashed Trojan defenders for 253 yards. They held the Central Michigan commit to 110 yards and a TD on 21 carries. Tillman was 6-for-11 for 96 yards.
Esper went from 286 rushing yards to 539 in one game, shooting up from 10th to seventh in the Saginaw Valley League-Blue rushing leaders in the final week and passing Cam Mienk as West’s leading runner for the season by 21 yards.
“Instead of giving up the big runs, we let them have those 1, 2 and 3-yard runs,” Waller said. “Just tackle lower and rally on defense.”
Esper made 15 tackles, with Owen Wohlfert coming up with 12 stops, including a sack and a tackle for loss. Jackson Gallagher also had a sack and a tackle for loss and Luka Dumon had eight tackles and Mienk seven.
Kaelan Burkholder led Central’s defense with 12 tackles, Ryker Craig added seven and Oliver Dobreff had six, including a tackle for loss. Sam Rice and Feeney also had a tackle for loss among their 10 combined stops.
“Defensively, we made a couple wrinkles and couple changes,” Schugars said. “It was a chance to tackle better and get in our gaps, just play better defense. We did that. Having Tillman back, he made some big plays down the stretch. We gave up some big plays on D, but we held when we needed to.”
Central moves on to play Muskegon on the road next week. The Big Reds (7-3) won 39-35 over Muskegon Mona Shores.
“Hats off to Central for playing a good game,” Wagner said. “They’re a good group, we knew that going in. We knew that it was going to be tight again, down to the wire, and sometimes you just come up short.”