Friday Night Scrimmage at Grand Haven

Football season is still a few days away, but a hit delivered by Grand Haven linebacker Jerry Westerman is still making noise.

During inter-squad scrimmages last Friday with Northview, Reeths-Puffer, and Portage Northern, the senior fought his way around the offensive line to personally deliver a crunching hit on Northview’s quarterback.

Grand Haven’s Jerry Westerman delivers a huge hit from Varsity News Network on Vimeo.

At first, I couldn’t tell which imposing linebacker was responsible for the hit. But I sent a messenger to ask the Grand Haven sideline.

“It was Jerry,” a player told the messenger! “Who else do you think hit ‘em?”

When I thought about it, he was right. Last year, Westerman (5’10” 190 lbs.) solidified himself as a force to be reckoned with. In 2009, he recorded 101 tackles, including 16 for a loss and five sacks, and two interceptions. Those numbers along with his outstanding speed landed him on the Division 1-4 All-Area honorable mention list.

As for the rest of the scrimmage, it was abundantly clear that 2009 wasn’t a fluke for the Buccaneers. Their size, strength, and speed overwhelmed the visiting squads and produced highlight reels for the defense and offense. There was only one problem: all of the players had switch jersey numbers. Starting quarterback Adam Poel, who normally wears #11, don the #9 jersey of his backup, who in turn wore Poel’s #11. As much as they wanted to, they couldn’t hide Poel’s passer presence or the over powering running back Dalton Stenberg. Taking an analogy from the Madden football video games, Stenberg truck-stick’d opponents with ease. Defensively, the ‘Bucs held the turbo button and hit with furry.

Northview squared off against Grand Haven to start the night of scrimmages. The Wildcats clicked several times and fought for every yard they could against the bigger ‘Bucs, something they’ll have to do against conference opponents East Grand Rapids and Lowell.

Now, we all know teams don’t show us everything in scrimmages. With opposing coaches in the stands, it’d be football suicide. But, you can’t hide tall wide receiver weapons like juniors Kevin Rich and Ryan Rushmen. Both kids stand over 6’3” so I bet head coach Rob Zeitman uses them when the time is right.

“They’ve come along ways,” said coach Zeitman. “But we’re not a finished product.”

The ‘Cats are a little small in the backfield, but made up for it with their vision and athleticism. In the trenches, they’ll have to stick to their blocking assignments a little longer to give senior quarterback Zach Baker more time. It’s a young team, but their track record on the underclassmen teams proves they have talent to compete in the OK-White.

On defense, captain Ben Greene and his linebacker corp. played well against the Grand Haven ‘Bucs. Even though they we’re a bit smaller, they still competed mightily.

Reeths-Puffer represented the OK-Black well in the inter-squad scrimmage, but may need a little more time to come together. Running back Kalon Shackelford [Corrected Aug. 24] held onto the ball all night against swarms of defenders.

Reeths-Puffer running back Kalon Shackelford evades a tackle.

But defensively, the Rockets need to stick to their assignments a little better. They have the speed, but when matched up against a bigger opponent like Grand Haven, it’s imperative that they’re in the right position at the right time.