Calvin stuns Hope in Dutch-flavored rivalry showdown to clinch historic playoff berth

In the Netherlands, there is a wonderfully immodest saying: “If it ain’t Dutch, it ain’t much.” On Saturday in western Michigan, two college football rosters overflowing with Dutch surnames provided a fairly convincing argument for the defense.

Calvin University beat Hope College 38–24 in Grand Rapids, claiming its first football victory in The Rivalry, a share of the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association (MIAA) championship and the conference’s automatic NCAA Division III playoff berth. All this in Calvin’s third varsity season. Some programs take longer to agree on the stadium catering.

Hope, based in Holland, made the short journey home with its first defeat. The trip between these neighbors is shorter than Amsterdam to Rotterdam back in Old Holland. On this occasion, it probably felt considerably longer.

The Rivalry, football edition, had ripened like a fine wheel of oude kaas. For Calvin, victory tasted every bit as good.

A rivalry more than a century in the making

There was ample warning that this could be special. Both teams arrived 8–0 overall and 5–0 in the MIAA. Hope stood eighth in the AFCA coaches’ poll and ninth at D3football.com; Calvin was 20th and 25th respectively. A sellout crowd of 3,786 filled Knight Stadium.

The Knights had progressed from 2–8 in their inaugural 2024 season to 7–3 last year. Now they are 9–0, 6–0 in conference play, with a championship share secured and the playoffs ahead. Hope fell to 8–1 and 5–1. This was an upset, certainly, but Calvin had been advertising its intentions for weeks.

Hope’s football history stretches back to a first recorded game in 1893. Calvin’s varsity history stretches back to 2024. The basketball rivalry began in 1920–21 and has spent more than a century dividing households, congregations and otherwise perfectly reasonable people. Football needed only three meetings to acquire some properly sharp edges.

Hope won the first two by a combined 90–7, including last season’s 52–0 demolition. Useful experience for a startup, perhaps, but hardly the stuff of sporting suspense. Saturday supplied that missing ingredient.

It also supplied Luke Michmerhuizen.

Michmerhuizen delivers a hometown twist

The 6-foot-7 receiver caught six passes for a career-high 155 yards and three touchdowns, scoring twice in the fourth quarter to break open a 24–24 game. Michmerhuizen is a substantial name on a substantial target. Hope’s secondary discovered that fitting him onto the scouting report was easier than keeping him out of the end zone.

There was another pleasing complication. Michmerhuizen is from Holland.

“I watched a lot of Hope games growing up, but I have always been a Calvin guy,” he told The Holland Sentinel. Local knowledge, apparently, extends to knowing exactly how to ruin the neighbors’ afternoon.

Quarterback Thomas Vaccaro completed 21 of 29 passes for 357 yards and three touchdowns, adding 56 rushing yards and another score. His 413 yards of total offense set a Calvin single-game record. The surname may interrupt the Dutch roll call, but nobody in maroon and gold was asking to inspect his family tree.

A goal-line stand changes everything

Calvin’s afternoon began badly. Vaccaro lost a fumble on the opening possession, Tyler Radley recovered, and Hope converted the short field into Brody Schuiteman’s five-yard touchdown run.

The Knights answered with a 71-yard touchdown drive, Nick Earles finishing from four yards. Hope regained the lead through Avery Umphrey’s 30-yard field goal after Alex Thole’s 55-yard completion to Eli VanderVeen helped move the visitors into range.

VanderVeen, Schuiteman, Michmerhuizen: Dutch readers could have mistaken parts of the play-by-play for a municipal roll call. The collisions were rather less orderly.

The decisive first-half exchange came after Nolan Vis intercepted Vaccaro and returned the ball 27 yards to Calvin’s eight. Four Schuiteman runs gained seven yards. Carson Schnurstein and Caiden Bolduc combined for a third-down stop before Nolan Bloomquist halted the fourth-down attempt at the one.

Calvin then traveled 99 yards for a touchdown, the longest scoring drive in program history. Vaccaro escaped the shadow of his goal line with a 24-yard completion to Hayden Slegers, later found Jude Klunder for 33 yards, and finished with an 18-yard touchdown to Michmerhuizen.

Hope answered through Thole’s 43-yard touchdown pass to Trevor Griffiths. Vaccaro’s five-yard keeper restored Calvin’s advantage, 21–17, before halftime.

Fourth-quarter fireworks settle the score

Sal Ruffino extended the lead with a 41-yard field goal in the third quarter, but Thole’s six-yard touchdown run pulled Hope level at 24–24 with 3:30 remaining in the period. After two years of lopsided results, the football rivalry finally had a fourth quarter worth arguing about.

Michmerhuizen settled it. With 6:59 remaining, Vaccaro found him down the right sideline for a 39-yard touchdown. Calvin then survived a botched kickoff that handed Hope favorable field position, forced a punt, and struck again. Michmerhuizen’s 64-yard touchdown reception with 4:08 left made it 38–24.

Two touchdowns in less than three minutes. So much for Dutch Calvinistic thriftiness

Calvin wins the battle in the trenches

The spectacular catches deserved the headlines, but Calvin also won the less glamorous argument up front. Slegers rushed for a career-high 107 yards on 22 carries and caught four passes for another 50. The Knights outgained Hope 540–368 and outrushed a team accustomed to dominating on the ground, 183–114.

“Never would I have guessed that they would outrush us,” Hope coach Peter Stuursma told The Holland Sentinel.

Schnurstein led Calvin with 16 tackles and two sacks. Bloomquist contributed eight tackles, including 2.5 for loss and a sack. Hope finished without a fourth-down conversion in three attempts. Vis’s ten tackles and interception, Trenten Bolhouse’s 11 stops and Mike Murphy’s 14 could not contain the Knights.

Thole threw for 254 yards and a touchdown but was sacked four times. Griffiths caught eight passes for 117 yards and a score. Hope now hosts Trine, while Calvin visits Alma on 14 November. The Knights can claim the conference title outright; Hope needs a victory and an Alma win to share it.

A rivalry finally ripens

Later that day, Michigan State beat Michigan 15–6 in an Ann Arbor slog. The Big House had the bigger audience. Western Michigan had the more lekker football.

For Hope, the silver lining will take some appreciating. Losing to Calvin is nobody’s preferred method of improving a rivalry. But the basketball neighbors now have a football fixture with genuine consequences, and Calvin has arrived far ahead of any reasonable schedule.

Only three seasons old, and already ripened to perfection. As the Dutch would say, “Eet smakelijk”!

Scoring summary

Hope’s score listed first throughout.

First quarter

12:07 — Hope: Brody Schuiteman 5-yard run (Avery Umphrey kick), 7–0.

5:16 — Calvin: Nick Earles 4-yard run (Sal Ruffino kick), 7–7.

0:44 — Hope: Umphrey 30-yard field goal, 10–7.

Second quarter

8:31 — Calvin: Luke Michmerhuizen 18-yard pass from Thomas Vaccaro (Ruffino kick), 10–14.

6:05 — Hope: Trevor Griffiths 43-yard pass from Alex Thole (Umphrey kick), 17–14.

1:14 — Calvin: Vaccaro 5-yard run (Ruffino kick), 17–21.

Third quarter

9:47 — Calvin: Ruffino 41-yard field goal, 17–24.

3:30 — Hope: Thole 6-yard run (Umphrey kick), 24–24.

Fourth quarter

6:59 — Calvin: Michmerhuizen 39-yard pass from Vaccaro (Ruffino kick), 24–31.

4:08 — Calvin: Michmerhuizen 64-yard pass from Vaccaro (Ruffino kick), 24–38.