Portland football tops Charlotte in CAAC White first-place showdown
CHARLOTTE − Drew Miller and the Portland football team were disappointed to have their streak of league titles end last season.
The Raiders hope they've now started a new one.
Division 5 No. 7-ranked Portland secured at least a share of the CAAC White championship on Friday with its 40-13 victory over Division 4 No. 6 Charlotte in a matchup of unbeatens in league play.
Miller ran for four scores – two in each half – while helping Portland (5-1, 4-0) return to the top of the White. The Raiders can secure the crown outright next week with a win over Lansing Catholic, which suffered an overtime loss to Ionia on Friday.
"This was a big step in getting the league this year," Miller said. "We knew they were a good team. We prepped hard, we got ready for the week, we came out hard and everyone played hard throughout the game and we came out with the win."
Miller had touchdown runs of 13, 5, 44 and 54 yards while helping Portland claim a piece of its seventh White championship in eight seasons. Portland has won 38 of its last 39 contests in conference play since the start of the 2015 season.
"Winning this league is a tough thing to do," Portland coach John Novara said. "Week in and week out, you've got to be ready to play football. Everybody is tough in our league. It's a really balanced league and that was a physical football team with some very good athletes. We'll take (this win) and we have one more game in front of us to get the outright league title."
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Fast start key for Raiders
Friday marked one of the biggest games in recent history for Charlotte, which entered the contest 5-0 for the first time since 2004. The Orioles were trying to capture at least a share of their first league title since 2008 but were doomed by mistakes early.
Portland capitalized on those while handing the Orioles (5-1, 3-1) their first setback.
Portland recovered a Charlotte fumble on the second play of the night and turned it into a 13-yard touchdown run by Miller. The Raiders then took advantage of pinning Charlotte inside its 5-yard line after a punt by getting a safety. After getting the ball back following the safety, Portland added a touchdown when Marc Nobis threw a 38-yard touchdown pass to Caden Thelen.
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Miller added a touchdown with 5:14 to play in the second quarter that gave the Raiders a 23-0 lead.
"We knew we were going to have to come out fast and hard against them," Miller said. "They are a good team and we needed to set the tempo of the game early on. Against Sexton last week we had kind of a slow start and it turned out to be a really close game. We knew this week it had to be a good start."
Charlotte was held without a first down until the middle stages of the second quarter. It got a touchdown late in the first half from Devon Eaton. The Orioles struck again with 9:55 to play when Braden Hill had an 85-yard touchdown that cut Portland's lead to 23-13.
But the Raiders answered with Miller running for a 54-yard touchdown on the next series. That was part of 17 unanswered points to close the game for Portland.
Novara was pleased with the finish, but thought the start was the difference.
"Really that was the difference in the game was the first couple of minutes of this thing because pretty much after that they played us pretty even until the end of the game when we got a couple long runs," Novara said.
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Contact Brian Calloway at bcalloway@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @brian_calloway.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Portland football takes down Charlotte in CAAC White showdown
