Colon finds itself back in regional final after playoff-opening win

COLON — The Colon football program went three straight seasons without making the post season.Now, the Magi find themselves back in the playoffs. And after a win on Friday night at home, the Magi are headed to the regional finals in Division 8-player football. It was a game which saw the Magi never trail and ultimately win 33-20 over Bridgman.Both the Bees and Magi finished the regular season with 8-1 records. Colon finished with more playoff points than Bridgman, which is how they earned the home playoff game. It helped the Magi as they came into the contest with confidence and comfort. The playoffs are never easy. A single loss means the end of the season. Colon discussed this after finishing the regular season. But head coach Robbie Hattan, who guided the Magi to the playoffs in his return to the school with a changed culture, said he believed in his team and how it could succeed.STURGIS SWIMMERS CRUISE: Sturgis swimmers dominate on senior night, win seven eventsFOOTBALLER OF THE WEEK: Mendon's Zak Iobe wins Footballer of the Week, presented by Glen Oaks"This is new territory for these kids," he said. "We talked about controlling what we could control tonight, we needed to do what we do."Even in victory, there are still things for Colon to get corrected as the season continues. Hattan and his coaching staff know it, the players know it as well. Simple corrections on penalties and execution will be a priority this week.For Friday's game, the Magi found the end zone in each of the four quarters. The consistency when they had the football was highlighted by a major edge in time of possession at 33:35 - 14:25. Colon led late at 27-20 midway through the fourth, but put together a scoring drive that helped put the game away."We talked at halftime about being disciplined and controlling what we can control," Harran said. "Credit to our kids. It got dicey there for us at 27-20. But to put a drive together there to go up two scores was huge. It showed a lot of maturity, showed we could buckle down when we needed to."The Magi ended with 369 yards of total offense, compared to 345 for the Bees. Colon piled up 305 on the ground in the game.Jabari Falls scored on a 1-yard run In the first quarter. In the second, he caught a 28-yard TD pass from Jeremiah West, which gave the Magi a two-score lead. Colon scored once more before the end of the quarter as well, getting a 5-yard TD pitch and catch from West to Davis Lafler.That final scoring drive for Colon in the first half was a 12-play, 83-yarder. The 20-0 lead held up at halftime. Hattan thought the execution stemmed from good work throughout the previous handful of days."I would say we had the best week of practice all year," he said.Bridgman would come out in the second half and score three times in the span of a quarter and a half. Colon broke up the swarming Bee scoring barrage with a 51-yard TD run from West, which at the time put Colon up 27-6.West would also score the one which essentially put the game out of reach, a 2-yard run with 3:24 remaining. It ended an 8-play, 61-yard drive that took better than five minutes off the clock.Falls finished with 32 carries in the game. He ran for 186 yards and a score. West also went to triple digits with 102 yards and two scores for Colon. Through the air, West completed 5-of-11 passes for 86 yards with two TDs. Lafler caught two balls for 51 and a score. Falls hauled in one for 28 yards and a TD while Carter Persons (nine yards) and Jonathan Wickey (two yards) both caught one pass as well.The defense was led by Tucker Davis, he made a dozen stops. Wickey, West, Michael House, Dylan Smith, Braiden Burbank and Falls were all in on four stops as well. West and Persons each intercepted a pass in the game, Smith recovered a fumble.Bridgman came into the game scoring better than 50 points per game."Absolutely so proud of my defense, extremely happy with our defense," Hattan saidColon is back in the regional final. The Magi will get on the bus Friday afternoon and head to take on Climax-Scotts. The Panthers came from behind late to beat Concord, 49-40, on Friday night.Colon beat Climax-Scotts earlier this season, 32-8. But Hattan and the Magi program know the regional final will be a different game as both teams are different than they were a few weeks back.Contact Sports Editor Brandon Watson at bwatson@gannett.com. Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @BwatsonSJ.This article originally appeared on Sturgis Journal: Colon finds itself back in regional final after playoff-opening win