By Ben Sanders – Herald Palladium

(Stevensville) — Lakeshore’s defense was so good Friday, it rarely had to stay on the field for very long.
The Lancers dominated rival St. Joseph 26-0, forcing eight turnovers and holding the Bears to just five yards rushing in the Southwestern Michigan Athletic Conference game.

“Our defense was lights out,” said Lakeshore coach Denny Dock. “Holy cow did we play well. We played so well on defense. And for a while, we played really good on offense.”

St. Joseph won last season’s matchup, snapping an eight-game Lakeshore win streak in the rivalry.

“I’m happy for our guys,” Dock said. “They wanted that trophy back, and they couldn’t wait to get it.”

Lakeshore (3-1 SMAC, 3-1) took a 3-0 lead late in the first quarter on a 36-yard Tyler Gates field goal, set up by a 38-yard run by Treyjen Keim. St. Joseph (2-1, 3-1) lost a fumble and threw an interception on its two drives.

The Lancers weren’t able to score again until Keim’s 10-yard run with 3:51 left in the half, as two second-quarter drives ended in turnovers deep in St. Joseph territory.

Quarterback JJ Bushu lost a fumble on the St. Joseph 2-yard line, recovered by Garrett Kiser. The Bears moved the ball near midfield with a 40-yard pass from Troy Pratley to Griffin Shinrock, but eventually were unable to convert a fourth-and-five.
Bushu was then intercepted by Preston Nichols at the St. Joseph 20, but the Bears gave the ball right back, as Riley Adams forced and recovered a Pratley fumble.

After the first Lancer touchdown, St. Joseph again gave the ball away immediately, as an attempted trick pass by Brennen Kerns was picked off by Grant Ruddell.

Aidan Jackson eventually ran in a touchdown from seven yards out to make it 17-0 at halftime.

“You can’t turn the ball over eight times and beat anybody, let alone a good Lakeshore team,” St. Joseph coach Andrew Pratley said. “It was an ugly night, and we’ve got to figure out a way to regroup and get better.”

St. Joseph fumbled on its first two possessions of the first half. The first was recovered by Lakeshore and set up a two-yard TD run by Bushu. The Bears got the second one back, but not until the ball had rolled into the end zone for a safety.

Lakeshore controlled the ball and the clock much of the rest of the way. The Lancers finished with 288 rushing yards from a variety of carriers. Bushu led the way with 16 runs for 89 yards, and Jackson had 23 totes for 79 yards. Cage Davison had 61 rushing yards and Keim 55, each getting six attempts.

“Aidan ran pretty good again, ran hard,” Dock said. “Treyjen had another good game. Cage, it was his first game back, I thought he had some nice runs. I think we blocked pretty good. But man, when we made a mistake, it was a bad one. We’re not cancelling practice, I know that.”

St. Joseph was forced to throw the ball in the second half, and although Troy Pratley threw for 197 yards, including 119 to Shinrock, he was picked off four times.

Keim, Bushu, Ruddell, Andrew Lies and Danny Vaughn all picked off passes. Evin Koeppe was a defensive standout with seven tackles, a sack, two tackles for loss and a fumble recovery.

Carter Vonk led the overworked St. Joseph defense with 11 tackles.

“I felt like the offense didn’t ever give the defense a break, because they kept turning the ball right back over to them,” coach Pratley said.

“We’re moving on. We’ll take next week and learn from this and get better. I think our kids are going to be plenty motivated to play that game next week.”