Last season’s final was a 47-0 ALC drubbing of Suttons Bay at the Legacy Center Sports Complex in Brighton.

Saturday’s game inside Northern Michigan University’s Superior Dome proved to be a much tougher test this year for the defending champs, as it took two fourth-quarter touchdowns to finally take down the Norsemen.

“What a tremendous game, my hats off to Suttons Bay,” Lenawee Christian coach William Wilharms said. “To make it here three … years in a row, man what an amazing program coach (Garrick) Opie has.

“To all of the fans, it was so cool in this environment. It was so loud, this is what small-town football is all about. I can’t say enough about the venue and just to have the opportunity to be here. I appreciate that a great deal.”

Adrian Lenawee Christian players and cheerleaders celebrate their MHSAA 8-player football Division 1 state championship at midfield in the Superior Dome in Marquette on Saturday. (Journal photo by Travis Nelson)

The game couldn’t have started better for the team that traveled from near the Ohio border, as on the second play of the game, Sutton Bay quarterback Dylan Barnowski’s pass was intercepted by Ashur Bryja for a 22-yard return for a TD.

Suttons Bay had multiple chances in the first half to score touchdowns with drives getting to the Lenawee Christian red zone, but they turned the ball over on downs.

The Norsemen tasted more success in the second quarter as Hugh Periard took a handoff 90 yards for a score on third down. Shawn Bramer’s two-point conversion run was sniffed out by the Cougars’ defense, and Suttons Bay trailed 7-6 with 6:44 left in the first half.

Lenawee Christian had a nice drive going inside the Norsemen 10-yard line before Bryja’s pass was tipped and intercepted at the goal line by August Schaub and returned 99 yards for the score. Another Suttons Bay two-pointer was no good, but the two scores were good enough for a 12-7 lead with 4:58 to go in the half.

Despite the big play, Lenawee Christian didn’t fold and instead responded with a six-play, 65-yard drive capped off with a Bryja 11-yard TD run to take the lead right back. The Cougars led 14-12 at halftime as they’ve been tested throughout the season, according to their coach.

“I think this year, we’ve been tested a couple times,” Wilharms said. “Colon did it to us at their place, we had to weather some storms there as well, so I think we were tested. (Britton-Deerfield) on the first play of the game in Week 9, comes out and scores on us. These kids have weathered the challenge … and they understand, they play together as a team.”

Suttons Bay had another turnover on downs inside of Lenawee Christian territory in the third quarter, and the Cougars responded with a Brady McKelvey 28-yard field goal to extend the lead to 17-12 with 2:02 remaining in the third.

Defense continued to carry both teams into the fourth quarter, where the first touchdown of the half was scored with only 6:21 left. Clay Ayers, who battled injury, ran the ball in for the Cougars to extend the lead to 24-12.

Suttons Bay fired back just 1:06 later with a deep pass from Barnowski to Periard for a 55-yard touchdown to cut the Cougars’ lead to 24-20 after Bramer’s 2-point run. In his third consecutive state title game, Periard had 209 yards from scrimmage. In also his final game of his high school career, this third consecutive loss in the state title game was the most heartbreaking.

“Obviously, the previous two hurt pretty bad, but I think this one was the most because it’s my last time ever playing football and we were so close to pulling this one off,” Periard said. “So this year’s definitely the worst in my opinion.”

Any doubt to the game’s outcome was put away with a 33-yard TD run by Bryja with 1:27 left to slam the door shut.

Bryja threw for 229 yards and ran for 161 yards and two TDs, which doesn’t include his pick-six.

At the end of the day, the Norsemen didn’t falter as much as the Cougars persevered.

“Sometimes you have the cards falling your way, and sometimes you don’t,” Suttons Bay coach Garrick Opie said. “Today was one of those days where timing mixed with lack of execution or otherwise. Or the fact that Lenawee Christian is just a very good team, was just very tough.”

The 2022 Adrian Lenawee Christian senior class finished 24-0 in two years with two state championships under their belts.

“They’re going to leave as the all-time winningest group in school history, they will have the single-season win record, they will have a ton of stuff,” Wilharms said. “As a collective group, oh my goodness, what a wonderful, wonderful group.”

Travis Nelson can be reached by email at tnelson@miningjournal.net.