Diesels tame Cougars, 14-6
By Christian Young
Ask anyone of the Detroit Diesels, and they'd say that this was a heck of a homecoming.
After three weeks on the road and a holiday week off, Western Wayne County's minor league football team celebrated their return to Livonia Franklin High School in a gritty, yet good style, downing the Lakeshore Cougars 14-6.
The greatness started when a Detroit defensive stand gave the Diesels the ball inside the Lakeshore red-zone. Three plays later, Brandon Fender tossed an 11-yard scoring pass to John Craven (Farmington).
"Our offense is steadily improving," Diesels general manager Al Seder said. "It was truly one of our better games all around."
The second touchdown came at the beginning of the second half, when TJ Dillard (Wayne Memorial) busted a 17-yard scoring run between the tackles.
Even with those two decisive scores, there were even more touchdowns left on the field, with two fumbles and three interceptions committed by the offense.
"We were able to recover from those mistakes and pull out the win," Seder said.
But that's also the amount of turnovers the Diesels defense forced as well, holding the Cougars to less than 50 total yards until the final minute of the game, when they mounted a long drive to finally score. The game was well in hand anyway.
Fender threw nine passes in the first half, connecting on five, for a touchdown and two interceptions before giving way to Andy Hess (Lutheran Westland) in the second half. He went 6-of-8 with an interception. Dillard ran for 74 yards on 15 carries as well as his second half score, and Craven had four catches for 64 yards and a two-point conversion as well as his score.
The Diesels even their GLFL record at 2-2, and now stand at 2-3 overall. They will return to Franklin on July 19th to play the Belleville Giants at 6:30 p.m.