Photo by R. Klompstra.

Last Friday night, September 9, the Cedar Springs Red Hawks faced the Wildcats of Flint Northwestern and pulled out another exciting victory (22-21) with less than two minutes left in the fourth quarter.
The Red Hawks took the lead early, when Hank Porter ran in a 24-yard touchdown, giving the Hawks the lead 7-0 at the end of the first quarter.
The Wildcats came into the 2nd quarter ready to play and scored a touchdown of their own, but had an unsuccessful kick for the extra point, ending the second quarter 7-6 Red Hawks.
The third quarter posed to be difficult for the Red Hawks, as the Wildcats scored again, with a successful 2-point conversion raising their score to 14. The Hawks were able to answer back with another score of their own, when Austin Wamser took the ball and ran for a 47-yard touchdown, and the Josh Champion kick was good to end the 3rd quarter with a score of 14-14.
The fourth quarter became an intense one, neither team wanting to give up, but it was Flint Northwestern that was able to pull off another touchdown and an extra point with only 5:09 left in the game, leaving the score at 21-14 Wildcats and only minutes left to play. The Hawks struggled to move the ball down the field, turning the ball back over to the Wildcats with only 3:25 left on the clock. It wasn’t looking good for the Red Hawks, but the defense held the Wildcats, and got another chance to move the ball. The Hawks offense took the field for what appeared to be a final attempt to score. With only 1:32 remaining, the Hawks pulled off an exciting double pass play when quarterback Tyler Covell passed to Hank Porter, who then fired it to Brandon Slater, who ran it 75 yards for a Red Hawk touchdown. With the score now 21-20 Wildcats, the Red Hawks went for two points and found success when Tyler Covell completed a pass to Hank Porter to bring the score to 22-21 Cedar.
The Wildcats took possession of the ball again, but the Red Hawk defense rose to the occasion and clinched the win when Jake Benton intercepted a pass from the Wildcats at the Cedar Springs 35-yard line with 42 seconds left in the game. The Red Hawks ran down the clock and improved their season record to 3-0.
“This was an exciting victory and I think our players did a great job of not hanging their heads and kept a belief in each other that they could pull it out,” said Coach Busen. “On the flip side, we didn’t execute very well on the offensive side of the ball. We missed 4 or 5 big play opportunities and our line as a whole played too high most of the night. These are things we will need to fix going into a rugged conference schedule. The turn out to our first home game was fantastic and from myself and the rest of the Red Hawk varsity football team we thank you for your support!”
The Red Hawks will be traveling to Coopersville this week for their conference opener, to take on the Broncos, who are 0-1 in conference, and 1-2 overall. Coopersville lost to Sparta last week 13-10.

Red Hawk Tiffany Karger scored 9 points against the Kent City Eagles last week. Photo by R. Karger.

The Cedar Springs Red Hawks Varsity girls basketball team had a rough couple of games last week, losing to both Wayland and unbeaten Kent City.
The Red Hawks traveled to Wayland to face the Wildcats on Thursday, January 20.
Cedar Springs kept up with Wayland in the 1st and 3rd quarters, but were out scored in the 2nd and 4th due to a lot of unanswered buckets. The Red Hawks trailed by a score of 14-10 in the first quarter, and while the Wildcats kept up the pace in the second quarter, scoring another 14 points, the Red Hawks only managed 2. The third quarter saw more buckets from Cedar, but they only scored 10 points to Wayland’s 11. The fourth quarter was also dismal for Cedar, with them scoring only four points to answer Wayland’s 12. Final score was Wayland 51, Cedar Springs 26.
Scoring for the Red Hawks was Rachael Ludtke and Molly Holtrop both with 8 points; Chaya Coxon with 6; and Brittany Todd and Tiffany Karger both with 2. Coxon also went 4 for 4 on free throws and Ludtke 4 for 6.
Leading scorer for the Wildcats was Molly Lameyer with 18 points.
The Red Hawks then faced an unbeaten Kent City team on Saturday, January 22. Kent City kept the Red Hawks at bay, allowing them to score only 12 points in the first half, to Kent City’s 22. The Eagles came on even stronger in the second half, scoring 16 points in the third quarter to Cedar’s 5, and 19 in the fourth. Cedar answered with 13, but it was not nearly enough and the Red Hawks lost 57-30.
Leading scorers for the Red Hawks were Tiffany Karger with 9 points, and Rachael Ludtke with 7.
Leading scorer for the Eagles was Anna Iwaniw with 16 points. Also in double digits were Kara Carlson and Sonnie Kumat, both with 11. Alleigh Braford tipped in 8.
The Red Hawks were back on their game Tuesday, January 25, when they pulled out a close victory over the Comstock Panthers, 49-42. Read about it next week’s Post!
The Red Hawks are in second place in the OK-Blue with a 4-1 record, and are 7-4 overall. They host Belding on Friday at 7:30 p.m. in the high school gym, and travel to face division leader West Catholic (5-0, 10-3) on Tuesday at 7 p.m. at West Catholic High School.