Bart Williams sets GVSU passing TDs record in win
Lee Lamberts
Sep 22, 2018 at 10:30 PM Sep 23, 2018 at 12:06 AM
ALLENDALE — Apparently, it's not in the best interests of Grand Valley State University football opponents to irritate the Lakers.
When a Michigan Tech player smacked Grand Valley quarterback Bart Williams on the wrist during a pass attempt in the second quarter, Williams responded with with his best game of the season, throwing for 382 yards and five touchdowns.
And after the Huskies scored a second-quarter touchdown to trim the Lakers' lead to 10-7, Grand Valley responded with the next three touchdowns, all via the air, the final one giving them a 31-7 lead early in the fourth quarter on the way to a 45-20 win.
Williams' night was a record-setter. His 49-yard pass to Austin Paritee for a first down in the first quarter moved him into second place, ahead of Curt Anes, for career passing yards. His 42-yard touchdown pass to Nick Dodson in the second quarter also moved him past Anes for career touchdown passes.
Williams now has 118 touchdown passes with at least seven regular-season games remaining. Anes had 114 touchdown passes from 1999-2002. He's also in second place with 10,892 passing yards, just 23 yards behind career leader Cullen Finnerty, who passed for 10,905 yards (from 2003-06).
The Lakers are now 4-0 overall and 1-0 in the Great Lakes Conference after winning their league opener and beating Tech for the 27th time in 31 meetings. Michigan Tech is 2-2 and 0-2.
Not to be outdone in the "record" department, Saturday's Family Night crowd of 16,671 was the third largest in Grand Valley State history.
Grand Valley moved down the field in a hurry on its opening possession, but settled for a 23-yard Jake McGrath field goal with 11 minutes, 38 seconds to play.
The first quarter ended that way, but the Lakers jumped out to a 24-7 halftime lead when Williams hooked up for touchdown passes with Provencher (7 yards) and Dodson (42 yards and 8 yards), the latter two coming on the heels on Michigan Tech's only first-half touchdown, a 30-yard pass from Will Ark to Jacob Wenzlick.
Grand Valley outgunned Michigan Tech 346 yards to 136 yards in the first half as Williams had 241 yards passing and Chawntez Moss ran for another 72 yards.
The Lakers continued to roll with a pair of third-quarter touchdowns sandwiched around Ark's second touchdown pass. Williams got his fourth of the game on a 20-yard toss to tight end Pete Cender and Provencher ran 12 yards for a touchdown giving Grand Valley a 38-13 lead after three quarters. Tech got to within 38-20 on Ben Hartley's 15-yard reception, but Williams responded, again, with a 9-yard pass to Provencher to close out the scoring with 6:21 to play in the game.
Dodson, Paritee and Provencher each had five catches with Dodson posting 88 receiving yards and Paritee getting 87 yards. Moss had 15 carries for 95 yards to pace the Grand Valley running attack.
To Michigan Tech's credit, Ark did throw for 214 yards and three touchdowns, but the Huskies only managed 54 rushing yards in 24 attempts while Grand Valley rolled up 589 yards of offense, with 207 yards coming on the ground. Still, Michigan Tech's 20 points was the most allowed in a game this year by Grand Valley.
Defensively, Tyler Bradford had eight tackles for Grand Valley and Jailyn Harden added six stops.