ZEELAND — After seeing its lead cut in half, the Zeeland West football team did what has made the Dux one of the top teams in the state year after year.

The dux put together a long drive and scored on a fourth down play.

The touchdown run by senior quarterback Carson Gulker put the Dux back up two scores on their way to a 34-14 win over rival Zeeland East in the Bird Bowl on Friday night at Zeeland Stadium.

The victory was the 300th in the career of Zeeland West coach John Shillito as the Dux move to 3-0.

“(300) doesn’t mean as much to me as it does for these kids,” Shillito said. “It is nice and it is because I’m old. I am proud of that, but more proud of these guys. They played so hard, and that was our goal. We played our guts out.”

The milestone victory in the rivalry game is fitting, Gulker said.

“To do it against East is the icing on the cake. He means everything. He takes you under his wing and gets the best out of you every day.”

It pays off in big senior moments like on Friday.

“It is nice to go out on top in your last year. You kind of hold bragging rights for the rest of your life,” Gulker said.

Gulker helped put the game away with another brilliant play on a fourth down, this time a beautiful 42-yard pass to Terick DeJonge to push the lead to 26-7 midway through the third quarter.

“He is a special football player, no doubt,” Shillito said of Gulker. “I thought we made plays when it mattered. Obviously, Carson and Terick made some plays in the passing game that really made a difference for us. Terick made a couple of great catches.”

The game began with a moment of silence for Gasper Giarmo, a former Zeeland West assistant coach and Michigan High School Football Coaches Hall of Fame coach, who died earlier this year.

The Dux opened the scoring on a 5-yard run by Gulker on their first drive. DeJonge scored on the conversion to make it 8-0. Before the first quarter was over, Skyler Geurink also reached the end zone on a 7-yard run.

Zeeland East got on the board with a 4-yard touchdown run by quarterback Ethan Houghtaling. Paige Westra’s extra point pulled the Chix within 14-7 in the second quarter.

But the Dux marched right back down the field and scored on Gulker’s 7-yard run on fourth-and-2 to make it 20-7.

Before the half, the Chix (2-1) had one more chance to pull closer, but Houghtaling was stopped by Isaac Brooks on fourth down, leaving the Dux up two scores at the half.

The Dux got the ball first in the second half and scored on Gulker’s fourth-down pass to DeJonge for a 26-7 lead, then the Dux pounced on a fumble to stymie another Chix drive.

“Terick gets the job done. He runs great routes and I just had to put the ball there,” Gulker said.

In the fourth quarter, the Chix were able to reach the end zone again on a 1-yard run by Adam Cassel to pull Zeeland East within 26-14.

But Gulker found DeJonge for a 14-yard scoring strike to end the scoring after Logan Visser’s two-point conversion.

“In the second half, we didn’t slow them down that much,” Shilltio said. “I thought the first half, we played tremendous defense. We are probably out-sized by 60 pounds a man up front and our little guys up front showed up.”

For the Chix, Cebe Hunderman had 91 yards rushing on 15 carries and had four catches for 70 yards. Houghtaling was 12-for-17 passing for 188 yards and ran 16 times for 86 yards. Derek Pennington had five catches for 53 yards. Cassel and Collin DeKraker each had 12 tackles.

A couple of turnovers and more than 100 yards of penalties made the game an uphill battle for the Chix.

“Hats off to them, they played a clean game and we didn’t. We didn’t finish drives and they did. I think the teams, physically, are pretty evenly matched,” Zeeland East coach Derek Pennington said. “We didn’t get it done and it was frustrating for us. We would love to get the opportunity to play them again.”

— Follow Sports Editor Dan D’Addona on Twitter @DanDAddona and Facebook @Holland Sentinel Sports.