Engadine look to maintain momentum during homecoming game

By Dan Hardenbrook

Friday night will feature one of the biggest games of the year for Engadine Eagles football. The Eagles want to impress hometown fans when they host the Fife Lake Forest Area Warriors for Homecoming on Friday. The game will cap off a huge week for Engadine athletics and gives the Eagles a rare opportunity to head into a home game as the favorites to win.

Engadine is 2-4 so far this season. After dropping their first two games of the year, the Eagles responded with back-to-back wins over Pellston and Cedarville-DeTour in weeks 3 and 4, respectively. Two weeks ago, the Eagles fell to Central Lake 54-0. They were battered and needed time to recover, so they bowed out of the scheduled game against Gaylord St Mary last week to rest and recover. That would have been a very lopsided match-up; the Snowbirds haven’t allowed opponents to score a single point all season, while winning by more than 50 points a game.

It’s all led to what Engadine hopes will be a happy Homecoming this week.

The offense will be key for the Eagles, who topped the 30-point mark in both of their wins. However, the Eagles have been shut out twice and scored only one touchdown in another one of their losses. Gaining early momentum will be huge, and this may be another week where the Eagles can break out.

Fife Lake Forest Area enters at just 1-5 on the season, their only win coming via a forfeit against Suttons Bay, who cancelled their season before it even started. The results have been ugly in games they have actually played. Last week they dropped a 75-0 game to Central Lake. Two weeks ago, a beat up Brimley team topped them 58-0. The Warriors did try to play Gaylord St. Mary and the result was a 67-0 loss.

A win by Engadine would keep the Eagles playoff hopes alive and keep them in the running to finish the year with a winning record.