'Difference-Maker' Drogowski Returns to Bolster Lenawee Christian Title March
By
Doug Donnelly
Special for MHSAA.com
November 7, 2023
Blake Drogowski was given a deadline. He missed it.
He also missed football.
The Adrian Lenawee Christian senior skipped his junior year of football while recovering from a foot injury that occurred during his sophomore season, and he was unsure if he’d come back and play as a senior. He participated in summer weightlifting sessions and workouts but was still hesitant to put the shoulder pads back on.
“After my foot injury, and I was in the process of healing, I kind of lost my love for football,” Drogowski said.
What he calls the brotherhood at Lenawee Christian brought him back to the game.
“Coach (Bill Wilharms) sort of gave me a deadline,” Drogowski said. “Some of my teammates tried talking me into it. I wasn’t sure. I think I missed the deadline by a couple of days. A couple of weeks before the season, I was like, ‘I might as well.’”
Now, 11 weeks into this season, Drogowski is playing at a high level and is one of the reasons Lenawee Christian is in hot pursuit of a third 8-player championship over the last four years. LCS hosts Deckerville on Saturday in one of the Division 2 Semifinals.
“We’ve been saving him all season,” Wilharms said. “He’s so fast. We kind of turned him loose in the Pittsford game and then again against Kingston. He’s been just coming along, coming along. He’s come back and worked so hard in the weight room. He is a difference maker.”
LCS has several difference-makers, which is what has led the Cougars to be ranked No. 1 in most of the polls this season.
The success starts with Wilharms, who has built a powerhouse football program. In the first playoff game two weeks ago, Wilharms earned career coaching win No. 100, counting 12 at Adrian Madison and 88 at LCS. To celebrate, several members of the LCS volleyball team dressed as Wilharms for the game.
“That was fun,” Wilharms said. “It was a total surprise. I didn’t know I was at 100.”
On the field, LCS is led by its field general, Sam Lutz. A senior, Lutz has accounted for 52 touchdowns – 24 rushing and 28 passing. He’s nearing 1,000 yards on the ground and is well over 1,500 yards through the air.
“We’re just out here to do our jobs,” Lutz said. “This team is like a family to me. We are really rolling right now.”
Up front, Tyler Salenbien has had a tremendous season at center, leading an outstanding line. On the outside, several backs and receivers rotate. Brenner Powers has more than 500 yards rushing and 250 yards passing. Easton Boggs, Paul Towler and Jesse Miller have all had big games on offense.
Wilharms makes most of the offensive calls from the sidelines as the players turn to him and await the call. He’s not afraid to draw up plays on the fly. That happened once during the Regional Final win last weekend over previously-unbeaten Climax-Scotts.
The play ended up being a touchdown run by Lutz.
“That one, honestly, we drew it up while we were standing here,” Wilharms said. “They were overplaying him on one side, so we drew it up a different way. I’m not sure we even have practiced that, but it worked.”
Wilharms utilizes all his weapons throughout a game, rarely relying on one player to do everything.
“Ever since I’ve got here the kids have just bought into it,” Wilharms said. “We have a lot of weapons.”
The 2023 Cougars remind Wilharms of his 2021 championship team.
“They remind me of the second state championship team because of the fact they are a fun-loving group who can have fun but then turn it on when they need to in games,” Wilharms said.
Drogowski’s road to becoming one of those weapons was a difficult one. As a freshman he was on the LCS junior varsity team before getting called up to the varsity. He was dressed and on the sidelines when the Cougars won their first Finals title.
As a sophomore, he was playing before a season-ending injury occurred in Week 4 against Athens. He tore a ligament.
“It was one of the last plays of the game, too,” he said. “It was an option play, and the quarterback pitched me the ball and it was just kind of the way I came down; it tore.”
His season was over, but he was still on the roster for the second Cougars title.
“I can see some of that team in this year’s team, how we all play for each other,” Drogowski said.
His junior year, he never came out for the team. With backing from his teammates, however, he has returned. It took some time to get used to being on the gridiron again.
“I missed the brotherhood and being part of everything,” he said. “It’s great being part of the team. I just love all these guys so much.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Adrian Lenawee Christian’s Blake Drogowski (7) and Sam Lutz enjoy a moment during a game this season. (Middle) Drogowski turns upfield during a big gain. (Below) LCS coach Bill Wilharms earned his 100th career win during this playoffs. (Photos by Deloris Clark-Osborne.)
1st Day of Practice Begins Final Run for Father & Son Ostipow at Forest Hills Northern
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
August 12, 2026
GRAND RAPIDS – For one obvious reason, no player on the Forest Hills Northern football team has received more wake-up calls from the head coach over his lifetime than Owen Ostipow.
But the one he and a handful of his teammates received about 4 p.m. Monday may prove memorable – especially if it ends up setting the tone for a successful fall.
The first practice of this season was set to begin at 3:45 p.m. That’s when Ostipow and others arrived, thinking they were early. That not being the case, and a few conversations over the confusion later, the Huskies headed to the goal line where varsity head coach Eddie Ostipow – Owen’s dad – opened what was to be his final first day of practice, at least for a while, by sending his team through push-ups and sprints as a reminder to sharpen up immediately for the work to come.
“Definitely a wake-up call for some of us to just get in line and get order. A lot of the guys were a little late today, me included,” Owen Ostipow said. “Absolutely deserved.”
Most likely, that brief bumpy start will end up as little more than a sidenote as Coach/Dad and his senior all-state candidate son/quarterback ride together through one more season, Owen before heading off to play at Ferris State and Eddie on the way to retiring after 27 years as a head coach in the West Michigan and Greater Lansing areas.
A total of 602 varsity football teams were scheduled to begin practices Monday, as were teams playing every fall sport at every MHSAA member school.
At Forest Hills Northern, that meant the beginning of the end of a recent era.
Eddie Ostipow will be retiring as head coach after this fall and from teaching later this school year, providing more time to watch his oldest son Evan’s football games at Hope College and next season Owen’s as he has committed to sign with the two-time reigning Division II national champion Bulldogs.
Of course, Owen nor Evan nor younger siter Auden were even on the radar when Eddie began his varsity coaching career at Charlotte as a 24-year-old in 1999 and led the Orioles to a combined 47-17 record over six seasons and the Division 3 Semifinals in 2004. He left after that season to coach three at East Kentwood, then returned to Charlotte for five more seasons before taking over at Ada Forest Hills Eastern and building the Hawks toward an 11-2 record and Division 4 Semifinal run in 2015 that remains that program’s most successful finish.
Ostipow moved on to coach Greenville from 2016-18, then took over at Forest Hills Northern in 2019. He enters this fall with a combined record of 116-112 while frequently matching up at his various stops with statewide powers like DeWitt early on, later Rockford and Muskegon, then Grand Rapids West Catholic and these days Muskegon, Mona Shores and Byron Center all during Ottawa-Kent Conference Green play.
On Monday, about 70 players took to FHN’s stadium turf to get things underway, including 45 varsity players. The Huskies are coming off two straight 4-5 finishes, last year after losing 14 players to injuries – including nearly half of those for the season – during the first half on opening night.
But they also return an all-region quarterback in Owen Ostipow, who ran for 1,435 yards and 22 touchdowns last season and threw for eight more scores. And that’s a great way to start anew.
“We’ve got an opportunity. We have a chance to surprise some people,” Eddie Ostipow said. “I like being the underdog sometimes too, so I think that makes it exciting. If you can get your kids to buy into that, I think that’s something that can be really powerful.
“My thing as a coach, I always try to have a perspective of what’s possible for us and then push them like crazy to get there. If we can get every ounce of effort and intensity and focus out of them, then I think we’ve had a great year.”
Of course, as life roles change, perspectives can evolve as well. Ostipow has gone from teaching and coaching kids who were less than a decade younger to turning 52 years old with Evan graduated, Owen on the way and Auden heading into her sophomore year.
His football staff at FHN is a collection of coaches who were part of the program before him and others who were with him at some of his other stops. None go back to his days at Charlotte, but athletic director can – he was an all-state receiver for the Orioles under Ostipow before graduating in 2005. Sherman then played at Northern Michigan, came home to coach with Ostipow at Charlotte and again at Forest Hills Eastern, and he inherited his old coach in taking over at FHN in 2024.
“Coaching, he lives it, probably a bit more than he should. But that’s the hobby,” Sherman said. “His passion, he’s always working on something – he always has some nuance or change, something new he’s trying to learn.
“I joke sometimes, when you have kids sometimes you soften up a little bit, but he’s not soft. We’re going to have expectations (this season), we’re going to have all those things. But as you go through it, and then you become a parent, you sometimes see that lens a little different.”
As a now-veteran coach as well, Ostipow has had opportunities to cheer on former players who have gone on to major accomplishments.
In January, his former quarterback Trinidad Chambliss nearly took Ole Miss past Miami at the Fiesta Bowl, just missing out on a chance to play in the College Football Playoff title game. On the opposite sideline celebrating that 31-27 Hurricanes win was Jack Clark, a member of the Miami staff who starred for Ostipow at Forest Hills Eastern and owns a national championship ring after serving on Michigan’s staff during its 2024 run. Another 2005 Charlotte graduate, Chad Richardson, has a Super Bowl ring from serving as director of game presentation for the Los Angeles Rams during their 2022 surge, and he’s now with the Buffalo Bills in the same capacity as they prepare to open a new stadium. Matt Packowski was a junior on that 2004 Orioles team and now is a Division I college football referee.
There surely will be more to come, and Ostipow did not sound Monday like a coach on his way out. But he’ll do his best to be fan for a while and cheer on the Huskies who came through his household as well before possibly making a return to the sideline when their playing days are done.
“I feel like it’s kinda special. Most people don’t get to get coached by their dad, and I think it’s a little more extra special because I remember when my brother was a senior, and I started on varsity as a sophomore, that was the first time I’d seen (my dad) cry,” Owen Ostipow said. “It was just kinda heartbreaking. You watch (your kids) grow, and then they’re just gone.
“Now it’s going to be me. Maybe we’ll see that again from him, but you never know.”
PHOTOS (Top) Forest Hills Northern coach Eddie Ostipow, far left, watches his senior son Owen (white helmet cap) run the offense during Monday’s first practice of the season. (Middle) Owen Ostipow, far right, runs sprints on the track with his teammates. (Below) Eddie Ostipow works with the Huskies linemen.