Michigan high school football: Dante Moore moves Detroit King past River Rouge, 41-28

It proved to be a game of survivor Friday in a state final-caliber matchup between host Detroit King and River Rouge in the opening round of the Michigan high school football Division 3 playoffs.

And King quarterback Dante Moore was on his own personal island as he guided the defending D-3 champions to a 41-28 victory over the 2019 D-3 champs and 2020 D-3 runners-up.

The Crusaders took a 34-20 lead with 7:46 left on a 21-yard pass from Moore to Damon Stennis, only to have Rouge respond on a 29-yard TD toss from McKale McDowell to Johnny Greene 89 seconds later; the Panthers' 2-point conversion pulled them within six.

LIVE UPDATES:Scores from across MHSAA first round

ANN ARBOR-BOUND:West Bloomfield star Semaj Morgan admits he's cocky. But Michigan commit is also really good

But the Crusaders (6-3) sealed the win to advance to next week’s Region 4-District 2 final, while Rouge (5-4) was eliminated by King for the second straight year; King won, 33-12, in 2021.

Moore, a five-star recruit committed to Oregon, was 19-for-25 passing for 284 yards and three touchdowns. Many of his passes featured an NFL-type sidearm delivery.

“At practice the defense has been challenging me, the D-ends are coming up field and I just have to find a way to get around it,” said Moore, who also had 50 yards rushing. “It’s been a lot of hard work over the summer just being the best I can be, just working the arm angles. Really, everybody is saying it’s Matthew Stafford, but if anybody I’m looking up to (Patrick) Mahomes. Watching him, watching his film and the sidearm ... I just try to get the ball to my receivers to be playmakers.”

The game-clinching TD came when Sterling Anderson Jr. ran 20 yards for a TD with only 2:56 left to give the Crusaders a 13-point cushion.

“They were really physical up front, real physical linebackers, they just came to play,” Anderson said of Rouge’s defense. “It was a rival game and we already knew they were going to come out hard and come out real physical. We just had to adjust to it and play our game.“

Anderson finished the game with 127 yards on 24 carries.

“I’m just happy that today wasn’t our last game,” Anderson said. “I was happy that today is not how it’s going to end my senior season. We get four more quarters and another chance at a state championship.”

King took advantage of a Rouge turnover to go up 28-20 at halftime when Timothy Ruffin recovered a fumbled punt at the Panthers’ 34 with 34.2 seconds left. Moore completed three of four passes, including a 5-yard TD pass to Damon Stennis with just under three seconds left.

Moore was 10-for-14 for 172 yards in the first half.

“It was just a rough deal late in the half, not what you wanted to do,” Rouge coach Eric Pettway said of the late King first-half score. “I talked to the ref and it was a real questionable call. He said he did the best he can. It was a bang-bang play. You hate when the bang-bangs don’t go your way, but you’re happy when they do go your way.”

Rouge (5-4) had just cut the deficit to 21-20 with under three minutes left in the first half when Nick Marsh took a direct snap for a 2-yard TD run. But the Michigan State commit couldn’t convert the extra-point attempt.

To start the second quarter, Rouge drove 78 yards in nine plays to knot it at 14-all on Daivon Hill’s 1-yard run with 8:47 remaining. But King responded with a 53-yard strike from Moore to Jacobe Ogleby to set up Anderson Jr.’s 2-yard TD run with 4:36 to go in the half to put the Crusaders back up 21-14.

MICK McCABE:Picking every first-round playoff game

Jameel Croft Jr. picked off a Rouge pass on the Panthers’ opening series on his own 35 to set up King’s first TD on a 5-yard run by Anderson. The drive went for nine plays and 65 yards.

But the Panthers — helped by two King penalties, including a pass interference call — responded with a seven-play, 66-yard drive resulting in a 1-yard TD run by JaPaul Keith with 4:06 remaining in the opening quarter.

King’s defense, meanwhile, came up with a pair of critical fourth down stops, one in the third quarter and one early in the fourth.

“I wanted a shutout in the second half, but they played their butts off, got some key stops and turnovers, and that’s all we ask of them,” King coach Tyrone Spencer said. “Just give everything you’ve got and they really tried to do. We persevered and made it through.”

Ironically, the Crusaders didn’t have much of a halftime because the senior players spent most of the intermission being recognized. But the defense only gave up eight second-half points.

McDowell, meanwhile, finished the game 19 of 25 as well for 156 yards and Cameron Broadnax added 103 yards rushing on just nine carries, but miscues at critical junctures of the game cost the Panthers, who were eliminated by King for a second consecutive year.

“Penalties always kill you,” Pettway said. “They hurt you as team and as a program it’s something you want to avoid, so that’s definitely something we’re going to focus on in the off season. We have to make sure we’re more disciplined and penalty free.”

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan high school football: Detroit King rolls River Rouge, 41-28