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Cass City Chases History in Rematch

By Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com

November 8, 2019

Sandyn Cuthrell and his Cass City teammates have a simple way to make sure they are properly prepared for each game – treat every week like it’s Laker week.

As they prepare for their District Final, the Red Hawks won’t have to pretend, as for the second time this season, it’s actually Laker week. 

The Red Hawks will host archrival Elkton-Pigeon-Bay Port Laker at 7 p.m. Friday for the Division 7 Region 4, District 1 championship. The winner will advance to the Regional Final against either Madison Heights Madison or Detroit Loyola.

The win-or-go-home nature of the postseason adds more to this rivalry game, but it’s also a chance at some program firsts for the Red Hawks. A win would give them their first ever District championship and first ever 10-win season.

“This one, it’s probably the biggest game in Cass City history,” said Cuthrell, a four-year starter at quarterback for the Red Hawks.  “We’re not going to let it be ruined.”

Plenty is on the line, but what the Red Hawks have accomplished to this point already puts them among the best teams in school history. 

Cass City won nine straight games after a season-opening 16-14 loss against Montrose – a team that is still alive in the Division 6 playoffs – and won the Greater Thumb Conference West for the second straight season. 

It has also allowed 50 points. Total. All season.

“We’re not like huge; we’re all just super fast,” said Cuthrell, who also plays defensive back. “All these years building up to this year, we’ve been really heavy on the weight room every year. We’re all not huge guys, but we’re all really quick and fast. We can swarm to the ball, and there’s not a lot of big plays that can happen when the defensive backs are quicker than the receivers.”

Outside of the Montrose game, the Red Hawks haven’t allowed more than eight points in a game this season and had four shutouts. During six conference games, they allowed a total of 22 points. It’s the program’s best defensive performance since the 1950s.

“Coach does a really good job preparing us throughout the week,” junior running back and linebacker Alex Perry said. “We’ve been able to communicate with each other really well. The line gets a good push, so the linebackers can come in and clean it up. And the defensive backs shut down the pass.”

The offense has done its fair share, as well, averaging 40.1 points per game despite scoring just 14 in Week 1. So, while the defense’s numbers are eye-popping, most of the season has seen the Red Hawks be dominant in all phases.

“When you coach this long, hopefully you come across a team that gels really well, and that’s what happened this year,” Cass City coach Scott Cuthrell said. “We have a good group of kids, and they all get along really well on and off the field, and they all have a common goal. This is a group of kids that I’ve enjoyed going to coach every night.”

Players vouch for the camaraderie on and off the field and cited that as a main reason this year’s team has been special and capable of doing what no team at Cass City has ever done. 

“We’re more than a team. We hang out all the time,” Perry said. “This year, we just flow and really mesh together.”

Perhaps at no time this season did the Red Hawks mesh together as well as they did the first time they lined up against Laker. A 51-0 win in Week 4 marked the second-straight year Cass City had defeated its rival, but prior to the 2018 win, Laker had won nine straight in the series. 

“Last season’s win meant a lot to us,” senior halfback and cornerback Hadyn Horne said. “We’re 10 minutes apart, and it’s just a battle for our area. It’s always been a really big game around here, probably the biggest game in the Greater Thumb Conference. We know in the playoffs it’s pretty much like coming in with a 0-0 record. They’re going to be a lot better than what they were when we played them the first time. Obviously we beat them bad last time, but it’s all about who wants it more.”

The two teams have met twice in a District Final (2014 and 2017). Some of the current players were on the field for the 2017 loss, including Sandyn Cuthrell, who said it was “like getting stabbed in the heart.”

Not wanting to have that feeling again is quite the motivation, but so is making program history.

“That would mean a lot,” Horne said. “I think down the road, I’ll look back at that and know, ‘That was our team that did that.’”

Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.

PHOTOS: (Top) Cass City defenders including Alex Perry (44) pursue the Laker quarterback during this season’s first game against their rival. (Middle) Sandyn Cuthrell (6) breaks through the line for the Red Hawks. (Photos courtesy of the Cass City athletic department.)

Reading is Believing for 1st-Time Champ

November 23, 2018

By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor

DETROIT – Alex Price’s 11 words – or rather, 56 characters – last Nov. 25 spoke volumes.

And he and his teammates made them count during Friday morning’s Division 8 Final at Ford Field.

Two days shy of a year ago, the Reading now-senior quarterback tweeted that his team would be making the trip to Detroit this weekend. It was quite a prediction. The Rangers had just finished 8-3 – but hadn’t reached a Semifinal since 2008 and had never played in an MHSAA football championship game.

Well, Reading is believing. Breckenridge scored first Friday, but the Rangers popped back up and broke away for a 39-20 win and their first Finals championship in this sport.

The win actually capped a three-year run that saw three freshmen and seven sophomores join the varsity in 2016, boosting that team from 11 to 21 players even as the overall level of experience fell dramatically. Reading finished only 3-6 that season, but set the stage for the team to play on the state’s biggest.

“What’s special is the kids,” Reading coach Rick Bailey said. “Basically we played that (2016) year with a junior varsity team at the varsity level. We went 3-6, but we competed in every game. They decided back then they were going to make it happen.”

Friday morning was going to be filled with firsts, regardless of the winner. Breckenridge also was making its first MHSAA Finals appearance in football, and both teams were undefeated heading into the day.

Reading (13-0) rarely had been stopped this season – even the local police escorted the Rangers through a few red lights early Friday as part of an escort kicking off the morning march.

But they knew they were in for some challenges right away. First, Breckenridge stopped Reading on a fourth down play at the Rangers’ 32-yard-line just four minutes into the game. The Huskies followed up by scoring the game’s first touchdown, converting two fourth downs on the way to the end zone.

Reading had been giving up only 7.2 points per game, and Breckenridge suddenly led 6-0. Game on. But the Rangers’ defense – one of the most impressive in any division this fall – brought things back to even with a Finals first.

With just over a minute left in the first quarter, senior Caleb Miller’s 42-yard punt pinned the Huskies on their 1-yard-line. On the next play, Miller got a sack and the ball came loose, and junior Elijah Strine ended up with it in the end zone – the first fumble recovery for a touchdown in MHSAA championship game history. Senior

Ethan LoPresto’s 2-point conversion run put the Rangers ahead, to stay, just 14 seconds after one of the few times they trailed this fall.

“We were down when they scored first – we’re not use to that. We’re not used to teams scoring much on us at all,” Miller said. “That got the momentum up and really helped us out.”

Bailey said Breckenridge (12-1) had the toughest defense his team had seen this season. And the Huskies didn’t let up despite the disappointing and historic turn of events. But Reading began to grind, adding a touchdown on a drive of 5 minutes, 10 seconds, midway through the second quarter and extending the lead to 24-6 on a Price score to cap a 5:39 drive to start the third period.

Breckenridge still didn’t go away, and that was saying a lot against a Reading defense that also had given up just a little more than 500 rushing yards total and only rushing touchdown over the first 13 weeks.

The Rangers held the Huskies to just 21 yards rushing for this game – but Breckenridge did get a touchdown on the ground and two through the air from senior quarterback Carter Staley to senior running back Hunter Collins, who also had the rushing score.

“I was just extremely proud of everyone on our team, pushing ourselves and pushing each other and not giving up on one another,” Staley said. “That’s just what got us here.”

LoPresto led the Reading offensive effort with 123 yards on 16 carries. Junior Hunter Midtgard had the most memorable play, breaking free in the fourth quarter off a block from junior Ben Affholter for a 57-yard score. Strine also ran for a touchdown.

No player had more than five tackles for the Rangers – but as a unit they had 10 for losses and three sacks.

Staley finished 14 of 19 passing for 177 yards and the two scores, and Collins caught six passes for 55 yards while junior back Lukas Ebright caught four for 55.

Breckenridge had a similar back story to Reading – the Huskies went 0-9 in 2015 when a handful of this team’s leaders were learning on the fly as freshmen. Four years later, 11 seniors are done but next season’s returnees have played up to another full season with extra games during the last three playoff runs.

“We’ve got a plan, and we stick to it,” Breckenridge coach Kris Robinson said. “It’s good athletes coming through, but we’ve also got a process. We’ve learned as a coaching staff, and I’m hoping we can move forward from here.”

Click for the full box score.

PHOTOS: (Top) Reading celebrates its first MHSAA football championship Friday. (Middle) The Rangers’ Caleb Miller, right, chases Breckenridge quarterback Carter Staley.