Clarkston Surges by Kicking it Forward
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
October 27, 2016
CLARKSTON – Coach Kurt Richardson held a disdain for kickers. He didn’t trust them. He contends that a poor kicking game cost his Clarkston football team the 2000 Division 1 Semifinal, a 17-15 loss to eventual champion Grand Ledge.
Three years before, Clarkston had lost one-point games to Rochester (20-19) and Troy (21-20) that cost the Wolves an opportunity to play in the playoffs. Again, the kicking game had let him down.
“We didn’t have kickers,” Richardson said. “We made kickers. We tried a soccer player once back then, and it didn’t work.”
Enter the Breen brothers, Andrew and Ryan. Andrew Breen was Clarkston’s kicker in 2003. Ryan Breen followed and was the kicker in 2005 and 2006. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but Clarkston hasn’t missed the playoffs since 2002. You won’t get Richardson to say that.
Andrew Breen went on to kick for Tiffin University (Ohio), and every place-kicker since has gone on to college as a kicker – including his brother, Ryan, who went to Penn State.
The others include Alex Barta, who went on to kick for the U.S. Naval Academy. Then there’s Shane Hynes, the place-kicker on the 2013 Division 1 championship team, who is currently Kent State’s place-kicker. Alex Kessman was the place-kicker on the 2014 Division 1 title team, and he’s at Pittsburgh after graduating from high school this past June.
Zach Mansour is Clarkston’s place-kicker this season. And although he hasn’t decided what college he will attend next year, rest assured Mansour will be on a roster somewhere, whether it’s at the Division I level or below.
“Andrew kind of broke up the ice,” Richardson said. “It’s made a big difference. What also comes out of making field goals and having good kickers is now we’re kicking the ball in the end zone and teams are starting from their 20.”
Ryan Breen doesn’t remember exactly when it happened, but his life changed when he was a freshman at Clarkston High.
Breen and his brother were soccer players throughout their childhood. Then his freshman year his brother was a senior and Clarkston’s kicker, and something clicked. Ryan was just having fun working with his brother, shagging footballs, when he got the urge to try it.
Something clicked for the Clarkston football program as well.
“Coach Kurt realized, after a while, that kicking is so much part of the game,” Ryan Breen said. “He started to trust me my junior and senior years. He’d been let down so much (by kickers). It’s frustrating.
“It opened his eyes that (Clarkston’s) kicking game could be so good.”
Ryan gives credit to his brother for starting what has become a fraternity of kickers at Clarkston. And it continues today with Ryan Breen giving back – or paying it forward, if you will.
Clarkston is a sports-crazed community with football and basketball taking the lead. The fan support these teams receive is as fervent as any in the Detroit area. When an athlete experiences success at a school like this, often that person is motivated to give back. That’s what Breen has done.
“My brother kind of got me into it,” Ryan said. “We were athletes first. My freshman year I’d help him, chasing the footballs after he kicked them. I figured I’d do it for him. I never thought I’d kick. We never thought we’d kick.”
At first, his experience in college led Ryan to go back to Clarkston and share his expertise with the next kicker in line, Barta.
“I got with Alex and his dad,” Ryan said. “I tried to lend the knowledge I had.”
After coaching as a volunteer, Ryan came on staff at the junior varsity level for three seasons. He was there to start this season, but was forced to leave due to the time commitment he had with his business in Oakland County. He’s hoping that soon, perhaps in a year or so, his business will become less demanding and he’ll return to Richardson’s staff.
But he’s left his mark, and others have picked up his lead. Those who have followed, like Mansour, are reaping the benefits.
Mansour handles the place kicking and kickoff duties for Richardson, and he’s 5 of 7 on field goal tries with a long make of 45 yards. A junior, Jermaine Roemer, is the punter and, at this point, it appears he will replace Mansour as the team’s place-kicker next season.
“I was close with Shane (Hynes) and Alex (Kessman),” Mansour said. “I got a ton of knowledge from them. And Shane learned from Barta. I’m close with Jermaine. And Tristan Mattson is on (junior varsity). I’ll be working with him after the season.
“We’ve gotten so good with our kicking. It puts us ahead of other teams. When I worked with Shane and Alex, they were brutally honest. They’ll break you down. They yelled at me. It’s not to hurt your feelings. It’s all for the game.
“Paying it forward? It’s kind of my job. Jermaine and I developed a good relationship. We’ve had that reputation of having good kickers, and we want to keep it that way.”
Tom Markowski is a columnist and directs website coverage for the State Champs! Sports Network. He previously covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Zach Mansour kicks off Clarkston's season against Lapeer on Aug. 26 at Michigan Stadium. (Middle) Shane Hynes follows through on a kick during the 2013 Division 1 Final at Ford Field. (Click to see more of top photo from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Gach Brings Major Spotlight to Groves Football, Major Goals Into Final Season
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
September 6, 2024
It’s not like Birmingham Groves head coach Brendan Flaherty hadn’t had players in the past who received a lot of recruiting attention, given several Division I college talents such as Jaden and Jaren Mangham and DeOn’tae Pannell have come through the program under his tenure.
But make no mistake, Flaherty hadn’t coached anyone who has received as much recruiting attention as Avery Gach.
Before committing to Michigan over the summer, Gach held scholarship offers from 40 schools, and we’re not talking about smaller or upstart programs, either.
Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia and Florida State were among the programs to offer Gach, a hulking 6-foot-5, 290-pound senior lineman.
“He’s a unicorn,” Flaherty said. “The attention it has brought the school and the limelight it has shined on us. I haven’t had anybody like this in 24 years. We’ve had Big Ten players before. But he obviously takes it to another level being a national guy. It’s well-deserved, and he’s done a great job handling it.”
Indeed, this fall will be the last chance for Groves to experience a player who might not come around again for a while once he signs and enrolls early at Michigan, as he plans to do.
Gach always has towered over everyone — he said he was 6-3 as an eighth-grader — and has done that on the football field since becoming a rarity at Groves by making the varsity as a freshman.
After getting some experience during his freshman year, Gach really started to reach another level.
“After my ninth-grade season, I knew this was the sport I wanted to do,” said Gach, who also played basketball and baseball growing up. “I just hit the weight room. That helped me a ton.”
It wasn’t just weights and getting stronger, but flexibility and agility training as well that helped him become more than just someone who was bigger than everybody.
Gach also got to work mastering technical aspects of being a lineman.
“Just having heavy hands, containing the bull rush and keeping my core tight,” Gach said.
From there, the scholarship offers and attention started pouring in.
Gach didn’t allow a sack his sophomore and junior years, so it’s a good bet opposing defensive linemen know what they’re up against this fall.
The wrinkle this year, though, is that opposing offensive linemen might be up against the same challenge. Gach is going to spend a significant amount of time at defensive tackle for the Falcons, likely commanding constant double and triple-teams.
“I’m going to play it a lot this year,” he said. “I’m going both ways. I’m excited. I’m going to make plays out there. They’re two separate positions, but you have to be aggressive at both.”
Flaherty, for one, firmly believes Gach can be just as much of a factor on the defensive side of the ball as he has been on offense.
“His mind is wired that he is an offensive lineman,” Flaherty said. “But if you rewired it a little bit and said he was a defensive lineman, he would be a force. He just plays with such a great energy, tenacity and intensity. He’s going to do a lot of great stuff on defense.”
Gach also played baseball for Groves his first two years of high school but decided to give that sport up to throw shot put for the track team this past spring while preparing for the football season.
He’s fully ready and has ambitions that are similarly sizable for a Groves program that has never reached the MHSAA Finals.
“The expectation this season is to win a state championship,” Gach said.
It might seem like an ambitious goal for a program that has never done so. But then again, there also never been a player in program history quite like Gach, as people should once again see on the field this fall.
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTO Groves’ Avery Gach stands in for a photo during Oakland Activities Association media day this preseason. (Photo by Keith Dunlap.)