BLOOMFIELD HILLS - After struggling to even get to the line of scrimmage all night, the Bloomfield Hills Cranbrook-Kingswood offense had finally pieced together a long drive against the Father Gabriel Richard High School football team late in the fourth quarter.

On fourth-and-goal from the Fighting Irish 2-yard-line with just two seconds on the clock, the Cranes looked poised to finish off an 80-yard drive - and the game - with a Stefan Czarnecki touchdown.

But when Czarnecki took the handoff, he was stopped in the backfield by Gabriel Richard nosetackle Austin Hundley.

From the celebration that ensued on the Richard sideline that spilled onto the field, no one would ever guess that the stop was to preserve Richard’s 35-0 Catholic League win.

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The stop, however, meant a lot to a Richard team, which had mostly second-string defenders in the game at that point because that same personnel had given up a score late in the fourth quarter of 24-7 win against Notre Dame Prep last Friday.

“It was a big topic last week because we gave up that score at the end of the game the guys on the first team really put it to the guys last week, and they were disappointed,” said Richard coach Brian Lemons. “But I kind of explained to those guys that you gotta be into the game to help those guys that are on the field.

“Tonight, our first teamers were really coaching up the guys on the field, making sure they preserved the shutout,” Lemons added. “There’s big difference between sitting on the sidelines celebrating, and actually helping your teammates…(After the stop) You would have thought it was seven nothing.”

Up 35-0 before halftime, Lemons used the second half as an opportunity to get his second-string players on both sides of the ball extended minutes.

“When you get down to week seven, week eight, everyone’s hurt. If we can get some of those guys in the second group good enough to be in that first group and add depth and have less guys going both ways, there’s great value in that,” Lemons said. “So the reps our second team got in the second half were very important.”

Lightning delayed the start of the planned 4:30 p.m. game start and forced a move from the Cranbrook-Kingswood field - which isn’t equipped with lights - to Bloomfield Lahser High School. Once the game finally got underway, Richard’s Joey Birchler made lightning strike on the field, returning the opening kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown.

Cranbrook (1-3, 0-1 CHSL) fumbled on its first possession, giving Gabriel Richard (4-0, 2-0 CHSL) a short field to work with. Dennis Olszewski’s 12-yard touchdown run put the Irish up 14-0 with 8:49 remaining in the first quarter.

Olszewski and Ashton Hundley (Austin’s twin-brother) led the Irish in rushing in limited time with 31 yards rushing and one touchdown apiece, Hundley’s coming with 1:38 remaining in the half.

Richard quarterback Don Eaton scored the other two Irish touchdowns, both on one-yard keepers. Ryan Jenkins was 5-for-5 on extra point attempts.

Richard’s defense overwhelmed Cranbrook all night, only surrendering 11 yards of offense in the first half and less than 100 total for the game. Dallas Hartsell led the defense with 11 tackles and one sack.

“We come into a game like this knowing what we were matched up against,” said Cranbrook coach Steve Graf. “You just hope they’ll play with courage and fight. Physically you can’t matchup, then so be it.”

Pete Cunningham covers sports for AnnArbor.com and can be reached at petercunningham@annarbor.com or by phone at 734-623-2561. Follow him on Twitter @petcunningham.