ZEELAND, Mich. — Muskegon and Zeeland West will meet on Friday night for a battle in the OK Green. These two teams met twice last season with both teams earning one win each. The Dux won in the regular season thanks to a last minute touchdown, but it was the Big Reds who won the playoff game and helped earn them a trip to the division three state title game.
The Big Reds will travel to Zeeland Stadium for this match up. Head coach Shane Fairfield and his team took quite a bit of criticism in the first few weeks of the season after dropping their first two games to Rockford and De La Salle. But since then, they have won four straight games and look to make it five in a row.
"We had to understand that teams just aren't going to let us roll by and we had to get those jitters out. We had to come back at practice and work harder and harder," said senior quarterback M'khi Guy.
"I think we made a big improvement. We took practice more seriously. We've been hitting harder, just going faster and knowing what we need to do instead of thinking about it and not executing," said Jakob Price.
"Never did we doubt for one second. When we made the schedule, there's always the possibility that you could those any Friday night. When you have those mistakes, you see that you can correct these things, this isn't our team," said Shane Fairfield.
John Shillito and his crew come into this game undefeated. The Dux are a perfect 6-0 and sit at the top of the conference. After taking that playoff loss, they know that taking on Muskegon is always a tough challenge and the Big Reds are good in pressure situations.
"Our goal is to get it in a game and play it tough. We'll see where it goes but we do know that if their backs are to the wall that they will play harder than anybody else," said Shillito.
"Win or lose, we just have to take it day by day. It doesn't matter who we're playing. We come to practice and show up to get better as a football team," said senior outside linebacker Orion Yant.
Kickoff for this game is set for 7pm on Friday. We'll have highlights and post game reaction starting at 10:55pm on the Blitz.
For more scores, highlights, and the latest news on high school sports in West Michigan, go to the FOX 17 Blitz page.
