Belleville Finds Championship Formula, Completes 1st Finals Run
By
Scott DeCamp
Special for MHSAA.com
November 27, 2021
DETROIT – Belleville’s football team found Ford Field after a series of near-misses in recent seasons. The Tigers found it much to their liking, too.
Belleville put its speed, athleticism and depth of talent on full display in a 55-33 runaway victory over Rochester Adams in the MHSAA Division 1 title game Saturday. The fast track and climate-controlled environment were ideal for the Tigers in their first-ever Finals appearance.
Freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood passed for 284 yards and five touchdowns with no interceptions, three of the scores to senior Jeremiah Caldwell as the Tigers (13-1) came within a point of tying a record for most scored in a Finals game.
“You get a bunch of athletes on a fast track and without the elements, you know, it was going to be some opportunities for Bryce …,” said Belleville coach Jermain Crowell, the former Detroit Cass Tech assistant, who is now 72-10 in seven years with the Tigers program.
The 6-foot-2, 180-pound Underwood, who is only 14 years old, finished 12-of-21 passing. He capped Belleville’s scoring with a 30-yard run in the fourth quarter when he delivered a forceful stiff-arm in the backfield to a would-be tackler.
The 6-3, 175-pound Caldwell was on the receiving end of only four passes, but the playmaker converted them into a whopping 204 yards. Underwood connected with the lanky, speedy senior on scoring strikes of 56, 64 and 72 yards, all in the first half, as Belleville entered the locker room with a 21-20 edge.
“I would say I wasn’t that nervous, I just knew that I had to come out and execute our plan and finish the football game,” Underwood said.
Belleville took control in the third quarter, when the Tigers converted two Adams turnovers into touchdowns – one on a blocked punt and the other on a fumble recovery. They led 35-20 entering the fourth quarter, and that margin never dipped below 14 points the rest of the way.
Six different players scored TDs for Belleville, illustrating Crowell’s point in the postgame press conference that it was a team effort. The Tigers had no turnovers.
“It was the team. I mean, to be honest with you, it was the team,” said Crowell, whose squads lost semifinal heartbreakers to eventual 2020 state champ West Bloomfield (35-34 in double-overtime) and Brighton in 2019 (22-19). The Tigers also lost in the 2018 semifinals to eventual state champ Clinton Township Chippewa Valley.
“All the other years, it was always about this individual guy, that individual guy, that individual guy, and it’s not high school football. That’s not how it’s supposed to be. It’s not supposed to be that way.”
Even though Belleville’s defense surrendered 33 points, the Tigers made enough plays on that side of the ball and they did it with several players contributing.
Seniors Cameron Dyson and JaShawn Greene led Belleville’s defense with eight tackles apiece. Greene also had a forced fumble and sack, while Caldwell picked off a pass.
As much as Crowell stressed “team,” it was hard to ignore the individual talents of Underwood and Caldwell.
“I feel like it’s amazing because he’s so young,” Caldwell said about Underwood. “Once he gets to my age as a senior, it’s going to be, like, ‘Wow!’ Like, he’s doing this as a freshman now, so when he becomes a senior, it’s going to be mind-boggling.”
Said Adams coach Tony Patritto about Underwood: “His resume was pretty strong before he even got to Belleville. He can really sling it and, you know, his receivers made some big plays and a lot of yards after the catch. A lot of that’s on us.”
Adams (13-1), which went unscathed through the rugged Oakland Activities Association as well as a challenging playoff road, made some plays on Saturday, too.
Senior QB Parker Picot completed 8 of 21 passes for three TDs, four of his completions going to 6-6, 215-pound sophomore Brady Prieskorn for 117 yards and two scores.
Like Underwood, Picot was recognized at a young age for his athletic talents. He committed to University of Alabama for baseball as a freshman, but he also poured everything he had into this football season.
“Well, when it’s football season, it’s football season and this year we definitely had something special,” Picot said. “All of us players were all, you know, some of the best friends. At the start, every day (of) summer workouts, we knew we had something special and it was going to be really fun this year and I think we really held onto (it).”
Adams was seeking its first state title since 2003, which was Patritto’s first season at the helm, when the Highlanders captured the Division 2 championship.
On Saturday, it was Belleville’s time.
“I mean, it means a lot, especially to the community of Belleville,” said Caldwell, whose receiving TDs and receiving yards ties him for second in both categories in Finals history.
“It’s a new Belleville this year, so everything that happened in the past years was not happening this year. We all came together and made a change as a whole.”
PHOTOS (Top) Belleville’s Jeremiah Caldwell (2) prepares to make his move as Rochester Adams’ Marco Dicresce (4) looks to make a stop. (Middle) The Tigers’ Davieon Pitchford (20) attempts to run past Adams’ Parker Picot (11). (Photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)
Quick Study Central Lake Clinches 1st Title
November 18, 2017
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
MARQUETTE – Central Lake may not have been totally sure what it got itself into switching to 8-player football heading into this fall.
Clearly it didn’t take the Trojans long to figure things out.
A year after finishing 2-7 with 11 players on the field, Central Lake finished Saturday afternoon at the Superior Dome with its first football championship, downing Deckerville 32-30 in the inaugural 8-Player Division 1 Final.
The championship was the first for the school in any MHSAA tournament sport since claiming the Class D softball title in 1980. The Trojans also finished 13-0 this fall.
“Last year it was not even something. Or just growing up, you’re watching the Finals on TV … ‘I’m never going to be there,’ but it’s cool to watch,” Central Lake senior quarterback Gavin Mortensen said. “You dream about it. And then all of a sudden, you’re a state champion. It’s crazy.”
And so was the finish, as Mortensen put his team ahead to stay on a six-yard touchdown run with 2:49 to play. Central Lake came back from 10 points down with under a minute to play in the third quarter, riding a powerful running game to the final two of four rushing touchdowns on the day, while also halting two Deckerville fourth-quarter drives that reached the Trojans’ 21-yard line.
“Those get your heart pumping, don’t they, those stops? But what a great way to win,” Central Lake coach Rob Heeke said.
Junior running back Grant Papineau went over 2,000 yards rushing for the season, adding 183 for a final total of 2,067 while also rushing for his 26th touchdown of the fall. Junior Skyler Spangler had 101 yards and two scores on the ground to finish the season with 1,753 yards and 28 touchdowns rushing.
Mortensen, in addition to running the show, made it count when his number was called, adding a 49-yard touchdown pass to senior Jayce Hoogerhyde. And Hoogerhyde, who had 15 pass break-ups as a defensive back entering the game, made an equally significant play on that side of the ball batting down Deckerville’s final pass into the end zone.
Those are the guys who got most of the attention during the perfect run. But a most unlikely contributor deserved his share as well Saturday. Junior center Dalin Clark (6-foot, 265 pounds) left the game with an injury near the end of the first half. In came sophomore Vance Hoeksema (5-6, 140), who had played that position only a couple of times this fall. But the Central Lake attack just kept rolling.
“We just kinda rallied around Vance, and he did a great job,” Mortensen said. “After we got the first few bad snaps out of the way, exchange-wise, he did really well.
Guys on the line picked him up and told him what to do if he didn’t know, and it worked out.”
Hoogerhyde said it wasn’t until a 14-point Week 8 win over Onekama – that clinched for the Trojans the Midwest Central Michigan Conference championship – that he and his teammates started to realize what they might be capable of accomplishing this fall.
Deckerville had been to this level before, winning the 8-player championship in 2012 and finishing runner-up to two-time champion Powers North Central a year ago. That the Eagles (11-2) returned to the final game Saturday was impressive though, considering they replaced nearly their entire backfield from a year ago and then didn’t have injured leading rusher Cruz Ibarra for the last two games.
Senior Kenton Bowerman ran for 83 yards and also caught three passes for 93 yards and a score in the Final. Sophomore quarterback Isaac Keinath threw for three scores total.
“We’d love to win that state championship, but I think we overachieved maybe a little bit,” Deckerville coach Bill Brown said. “They really came together as a team midway through the season and as a head football coach, when you watch your kids and they come together and they’re playing as a team, and you’re getting those selfless acts … we have kids giving just everything they have out there. When you’re a coach, that’s all you ask for.
“I’m disappointed in the outcome of course. That doesn’t define this football team. We could play that game again, and we might win by two touchdowns.”
Spangler had 15 tackles, Mortensen 14, Papineau 13 and senior Dylan Michael 12 for Central Lake. Junior Curtis Vogel had 20 tackles and senior Wyatt Janowiak had 15 for the Eagles. Senior Zach Ostrowski also caught a touchdown pass, and senior Brendan Hadley ran for a score.
The MHSAA Playoffs are sponsored by the Michigan Army National Guard.
PHOTOS: (Top) Central Lake quarterback Gavin Mortensen begins to turn the corner on the way to scoring the go-head touchdown Saturday. (Middle) Deckerville’s Wyatt Janowiak hauls in a third-quarter touchdown pass over the tight coverage of Jayce Hoogerhyde. (Photos by John Johnson.)