WEST BLOOMFIELD — Going an entire quarter without a snap on offense is always an eerie sign for a team’s chances.
The Lakers went that long without the ball and then some after several self-inflicted errors late in the third quarter contributed to their 25-7 defeat to Brighton in Friday’s D1 district semifinal.
Starting with the ball coming out of halftime, the Bulldogs, after returning the kick to West Bloomfield’s 44-yard line, methodically moved the chains while milking tons of clock, then appeared to have nothing to show for it until the Lakers made contact with the kicker on what would’ve been a missed 40-yard field goal. Brighton ended up having to settle for another attempt that Weston Buckley nailed from 26 yards, making it 13-7 with 1:26 left in the third.
Then, in another costly mistake, West Bloomfield muffed the ensuing kickoff, allowing Brighton to recover the ball at West Bloomfield’s 24-yard line.
A 20-yard run by Brighton sophomore running back Dom Nauss got the ball inside the 10, and though the Lakers defense held strong — not for the first time on the night — another field goal by Buckley, this time a 27-yarder, made it 16-7 with 10:49 left.
Two errors that led to two opposing field goals in a game dominated by defenses.
“The third quarter, I give them a ton of credit for playing it really, really smart,” West Bloomfield head coach Zach Hilbers said. “I think they got about 35 yards of offense and they killed the entire quarter because of the roughing the kicker penalty. I’ll have to live with that for a while because that was my call to go after it.”
Still with a shot at that point, the Lakers got inside Brighton’s 40-yard line thanks to several keepers by senior quarterback Jamal Shakespear and a personal foul on the Bulldogs, but when faced with fourth-and-3 at the 31, Shakespear was tripped up by defensive lineman Mason Grove short of the marker to give Brighton the ball back with 7:47 left.
A 45-yard completion by sophomore Dom D’Agosta to classmate Jamo Parsell on third-and-long further diminished the Lakers’ chances of a comeback, which were essentially crushed on junior Jayden Ciponaer’s 11-yard score with 3:34 remaining.
Lakers senior quarterback Jamal Shakespear (2) powers in for his team's lone touchdown in Friday night's 25-7 defeat to Brighton in West Bloomfield. (BRYAN EVERSON - MediaNews Group)
Offense was tough to come by in the first half, too. The Lakers (7-3) went three-and-out on their first drive, then might’ve been in more trouble had Kaliq Robinson not gotten his hands to a tipped pass just several plays after West Bloomfield’s first pass attempt of the game was intercepted.
On the first play after the Lakers’ pick, sophomore Kam Hall broke loose on a 46-yard run to get the ball to Brighton’s 3-yard line, and two plays later Shakespear put his shoulder down to get into the end zone for West Bloomfield’s lone TD with 1:55 to go in the opening quarter.
Although the Lakers’ conceded a rushing score from a yard or to out to Andrew St. Clair with 11 seconds left in the first half, the only other points they allowed up to that point came on Buckley’s first field goal, a 25-yarder with 3:30 remaining in the first quarter, a testament to West Bloomfield’s solid defensive effort that produced a loss of yardage on a number of occasions early on.
“I thought the defense played really, really well, and it’s weird because the scoreboard doesn’t reflect that,” Hilbers said.
As to the effort on the other side of the ball, he added, “We knew they were a really big and strong team, and they brought a lot of guys up to the line of scrimmage, which teams have done to us before, so I don’t know if they really surprised us. There were more people in the box than we thought, I guess, but we’ve seen that. They tackled really well. It’s one of those things, if we could do it over again, obviously we’d do it really differently. Even if you don’t change some key plays, there were some pivot points in the game we’d probably handle differently, but anybody who’s lost any contest would say that, so we’re no different there.”
Brighton (7-3) didn’t open any alternate dimensions to score the Halloween victory, but head coach Brian Lemons said his defense played “out of this world.”
> [Photo gallery of West Bloomfield vs. Brighton in D1 district playoff action](https://www.theoaklandpress.com/2025/10/31/photo-gallery-of-west-bloomfield-vs-brighton-in-d1-district-playoff-action/)
"They gave us opportunity to get the ball with short fields, and we didn't' cash them all in, but we made it count as much as we could," Lemons said. "Having an opportunity to go out there and take a field goal a second time, that's always a bonus. I think our guys were really tough.
"Our concentration all week had been on tackling. We knew we couldn't match their speed, so we tried to have some angled and just tackle well, and our guys did a great job of it."
Absent in the defeat was lineman Travis Robertson (MCL), a UCLA commit, one of a number of key players West Bloomfield will have to replace to graduation.
"Travis has been the starting left tackle for every game I've been a head coach here; this is the first time I didn't have him," Hilbers said. "I know no one's going to feel sorry for me for not having a 6-foot-6 giant. But him and those other guys, I just told them that I'm forever indebted to 'em, and we're going to be bound because they really embodied what this program believes and stands for through the weight room, the dedication, their hard work and love for each other. That's what really led to a lot of our success this year, it just stinks when it ends this way."
The Bulldogs, who were coming off back-to-back losses against Howell and Dearborn Fordson to close the regular season, advance to play at Detroit Catholic Central in the district final. The Shamrocks defeated Hartland 35-7 in their playoff opener.