Drive for Detroit: Week 1 in Review
September 2, 2014
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
Opening night of MHSAA football season never disappoints.
This weekend’s first games of 2014 again produced plenty of discussion fodder. But they also included a couple interesting rarities worth pointing out.
- We figured Stevensville-Lakeshore’s 2-0 win over Battle Creek Central on Thursday had to be a forfeit when the score came in. Actually, Lakeshore’s defense scored a safety with less than a minute to play.
- Although we don’t tout a team’s losing streak, we certainly can celebrate the end of one – so congrats to Pinconning, which won for the first time since Week 7 of 2010, 27-8 over Caro; Clio, which won for the first time since Week 8 in 2009 by beating Mount Morris 24-14; and to Bay City All Saints for its first win since Week 7 of 2011, 45-14 over Bellevue.
Those two certainly raised a few eyebrows among the 300-plus scores reported from Thursday-Saturday. Read below for more of the most significant results from every corner of Michigan.
Greater Detroit
Detroit Cass Tech 27, Oak Park 26
Those following live or over the Twittersphere had to think Cass Tech was in trouble early as it trailed by two scores. But the Technicians came back to take the final lead with 2:16 to play at Wayne State University. The game featured two of the state’s top running backs – Cass Tech’s Mike Weber and Oak Park’s John Kelly – and an impressive debut by Technicians sophomore quarterback Rodney Hall. Click to read more from MLive-Detroit.
Also noted:
Orchard Lake St. Mary's 21, Southfield 19 – The Eaglets are coming off a rare playoff miss but began bouncing back by beating a Bluejays team coming off its third straight postseason appearance.
Clarkston 24, Macomb Dakota 21 – The reigning MHSAA Division 1 champion looked strong in beginning its title defense, edging a Dakota team that had won 17 straight regular-season games.
Birmingham Groves 42, Birmingham Seaholm 19 – Groves won this battle of rivals for the first time since 2011 and after falling to Seaholm by seven and six points, respectively, the last two seasons.
Dearborn Fordson 41, Temperance Bedford 21 – Fordson is seeking a ninth-straight playoff berth and got rolling by beating a Bedford team that suffered its only 2013 loss in the Regional Final.
West Michigan
Muskegon 21, Detroit Catholic Central 14
This ended up everything it was billed as Muskegon scored during the final minutes to survive in arguably the most anticipated opener of this season. The Big Reds are back-to-back MHSAA Division 2 runners-up and Detroit Catholic Central has finished second in Division 1 the last three seasons. Both have a number of new key contributors, but both also are again considered contenders to reach Ford Field this November. Click to read more from the Muskegon Chronicle.
Also noted:
Grand Rapids Christian 28, Grand Rapids South Christian 14 – The Eagles have won this clash of Grand Rapids titans five seasons running, even more impressive since South Christian has played at Ford Field to finish the last two.
East Grand Rapids 17, Grand Rapids Catholic Central 14 – The Pioneers also face Lowell, Muskegon, Forest Hills Central, Caledonia and Grand Rapids Christian among others, making every win count that much more as they look to return to the playoffs after a two-year hiatus.
Muskegon Orchard View 22, Montague 16 – Although Montague dropped down just a bit in finishing 6-4 last season, this was one of the biggest stunners statewide last weekend with Orchard View seeking its first winning season since 2009.
Muskegon Mona Shores 31, Saline 28 – Coming off its first playoff appearance, the Sailors appear headed for a return after edging another 2013 playoff qualifier.
Bay and Thumb
New Lothrop 28, Traverse City St. Francis 20 (3 OT)
New Lothrop hasn’t lost a regular-season game since Week 9 of 2009 – a stretch of now 37 – although St. Francis did its best to break the streak. Neither team scored during the first overtime, and both scored during the second overtime but missed extra points. Click to read more from the Traverse City Record-Eagle.
Also noted:
Montrose 52, Reese 7 – These teams combined for 20 wins last season, and Montrose is off to a great start on a fourth straight of at least 10 victories.
Saginaw Swan Valley 42, Saginaw Nouvel 0 – Alex Grace added another 195 yards to his more than 5,000 gained for the Vikings over the last two seasons.
Midland Dow 46, Mount Pleasant 16 – The Chargers broke a seven-game losing streak to Mount Pleasant and should be among favorites in the Saginaw Valley Association Blue.
Flint Carman-Ainsworth 26, Grand Blanc 14 – The Cavaliers followed up their best finish ever (11-2) by opening with a third straight win over this nonleague rival.
Mid-Michigan
Ithaca 38, Clare 13
Ithaca stands alone with the most consecutive high school football wins in the United States. The Yellowjackets ran their streak to 57 straight, while Iowa City Regina (Iowa) – which also had won 56 in a row – fell by a point, 29-28, to Solon (Iowa) on Friday. Clare entered this season with eight straight playoff appearances and should be a favorite to remain atop the Jack Pine Conference. Ithaca has won four straight MHSAA Division 6 championships and debuted a new starter at quarterback – junior Jacob Smith, younger brother of graduated all-stater Travis – and he threw for 245 yards and four touchdowns. Click to read more from the Lansing State Journal.
Also noted:
Grand Ledge 28, Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central 24 – This says a lot about the Comets’ hoped-for turnaround this fall after they finished 4-5 a year ago; Forest Hills Central also went 4-5 in 2013, but against a similarly rigorous schedule.
DeWitt 39, Linden 0 – The Panthers return much of the team that made last season’s Division 3 Final, but this score was a little higher than most probably expected against a Linden team DeWitt beat in the playoffs the last two seasons by a combined 14 points.
Okemos 28, Mason 14 – Could this first win over the rival Bulldogs since 2011 be a sign of things to come for a Chieftains team returning 17 starters after finishing 3-6 in 2013?
Lansing Sexton 35, Detroit East English 26 – The Big Reds have MHSAA title aspirations, and beating a strong East English team at Wayne State University was a powerful step.
Upper Peninsula
L'Anse 16, Houghton 14
L’Anse opened newly-dedicated Volunteer Field with a pair of late defensive stands to beat Houghton for the sixth straight opening night. The Purple Hornets are coming off consecutive 8-3 seasons, but fielded a number of new contributors who held strong against a Houghton team that made the playoffs last season for the first time since 2001. Click for read more from the Houghton Daily Mining Gazette.
Also noted:
Escanaba 24, Alpena 18 – Coming off its worst finish (3-6) in six seasons, Escanaba started this fall by avenging a 15-7 loss to Alpena in last season’s opener.
Cedarville 52, Posen 0 – This was little like last season’s 42-40 nail-biter opener also won by Cedarville before both went on to make the 8-player playoffs.
Iron River West Iron County 28, Munising 6 – Make that 12 straight seasons West Iron has started 1-0, and 12 straight regular-season wins dating to Week 8 of 2012.
Ishpeming Westwood 40, Stephenson 16 – Rebounding Westwood is halfway to equaling last season’s win total with this win over a program that’s made the playoffs four of the last five years.
Southwest and Border
Edwardsburg 42, Three Rivers 40 (2 OT)
Edwardsburg’s 2013 ended with a disappointing four-point loss in its first playoff game – which also ended up being the Eddies’ only loss of last season. They were faced with a similar situation Thursday – but made a series of big plays to come out on top. The Eddies blocked a field goal to help send this game into overtime and scored the winning points on their lone complete pass of the evening. Edwardsburg has beaten Three Rivers in three straight; this season the two are in separate divisions of the Wolverine B Conference for the first time. Click to read more from the Kalamazoo Gazette.
Also noted:
Gobles 33, Watervliet 32 – Watervliet didn’t lose last season until the playoffs, but Gobles bounced back big after missing the playoffs in 2013 and falling to the Panthers 43-14 in last fall’s opener.
Fennville 18, Lawton 0 – Fennville is seeking its first winning season since 2010, and shutting out a Lawton team coming off its fifth straight playoff appearance is a great start.
Plainwell 28, Dowagiac 13 – Plainwell has won two straight over Dowagiac after seven straight losses to the Chieftains.
Portage Northern 28, Battle Creek Lakeview 24 – Northern’s last football game before Thursday was a 31-7 playoff loss to Lakeview last fall.
Lower Up North
Traverse City Central 34, Marquette 13
Central opened last season with a 31-23 loss to Marquette – the first of four defeats by eight or fewer points as the Trojans finished 5-4 and missed the playoffs by a win. This time, Central’s offense rolled to more than 400 yards with two backs each running for more than 100. Click to read more from the Traverse City Record-Eagle.
Also noted:
Hillman 39, Rudyard 33 – The Tigers opened with a close one, scoring the game-winner with 27 seconds to play as they pursue their ninth straight playoff berth.
Traverse City West 31, Midland 14 – The Titans opened with a nice turnaround after falling to Midland 16-0 in last season’s opener; Midland went on to win 10 games.
Petoskey 53, Sault Ste. Marie 14 – The Northmen lost two games last season by a combined four points and missed the playoffs for the second straight, but hope this fourth straight win over Sault Ste. Marie is a jump start back toward the postseason.
Charlevoix 13, Elk Rapids 12 – For the second straight year, the Rayders were coming off a 1-8 finish but opened with an upset of a team coming off a playoff berth.
PHOTO: Detroit Cass Tech's Mike Weber (25) breaks toward an opening against Oak Park at Wayne State University. (Photo courtesy of Detroit Public School League.)
Search for Longest FG Starts in '50s
October 30, 2020
By Ron Pesch
Special for Second Half
Rob LaMielle’s first attempted field goal was a memorable one, and frankly, a bit amazing.
For starters, his track record on extra points, at least to that point in the season, was less than stellar. Flint Holy Redeemer entered their third game of the 1963 slate with a 1-1 record. The Flyers were defeated by Bad Axe in Week 1, then trounced Imlay City the next week. The senior had been successful on only 3 of 9 extra-point placements on the year.
“You had to bring that up,” said LaMielle over 55 years later, laughing at the statistic. “That’s probably so. Bad Axe was rated No. 1 in the state in Class ‘B.’ We were a ‘C’ school. They beat us 13-12 that night, because I missed two extra points. They scored in the very last couple minutes.”
The fact that his field goal was on the mark is all the more impressive considering it traveled 50 yards, clearing the crossbar by three feet, according to observers. Even more remarkable, it was a mere three yards shy of Lou ‘The Toe’ Groza’s best effort for the National Football League’s Cleveland Browns, and just six yards short of the NFL record, set by Bert Rechichar of the Baltimore Colts in 1953. Rechichar held the mark until it was famously topped by New Orleans Saints kicker Tom Dempsey in 1970 against the Detroit Lions.
“We practiced behind our football field,” said LaMielle, recalling how he got the job. “Behind our football field was two baseball fields with a backstop at each end. Well the coach lined everybody up on second base and said, ‘OK, we’re going to find out who can kick a field goal.’ So we started kicking the ball over the backstop. One of the times I kicked it, and it went a long ways.”
St. Redeemer’s coach Dick Clark stopped the drill and named LaMielle the team’s kicker.
“Before my senior year, I’d never kicked off, never attempted an extra point.”
At the time, the 220-pound LaMielle, who, like Groza, played tackle, was asked if he was surprised by the success of his kick.
“I was more surprised Coach Clark asked me to try it,” he said.
The field goal helped Flint Holy Redeemer top Bay City St. James, 29-6.
It also prompted another question from sports reporters. Was LaMielle’s kick a Michigan high school record?
The Search
The publicity surrounding the kick sent sportswriters around the state scurrying for the archives.
Initial inquiries indicated that Jim Yore of Battle Creek Central held the state mark, with a 56-yard field goal about 10 years prior, but a recheck of records by Dick Kishpaugh, “sports publicity director at Kalamazoo College and a close observer of Michigan prep football records,” indicated that Yore’s longest had been a 38-yard field goal, kicked on the last play of the game to beat Ypsilanti 3-0 on Oct. 3, 1952. It was thought to be the longest in state history.
Additional digging found that Port Huron High School’s Alfred Davis, a 212-pound fullback, had drilled a flawless 46-yard field goal in a 19-14 win over Hazel Park in 1953.
“The word ‘tremendous’ is probably one of the most overused words in sports lexicon,” wrote Port Huron Times reporter Fred J. Vincent, “but it should be used in describing this kick.”
Vincent called it “perfect, splitting the uprights and clearing the bar by about six feet.”
Impressively, Davis also had kicked a 36-yarder earlier in the contest. “Bob Boyd held on both kicks,” added the sportswriter. “Not since Oct. 8, 1930 had a Big Red player kicked a three pointer. Hank Ceasor did it then to best Ferndale, 3-0.”
Word came that Cheboygan Catholic’s Joe Poirier had kicked one “reported to have traveled at least 53 yards from the point of the kick to the goal posts” in a 10-0 victory over Alcona in 1957. Since the MHSAA didn’t keep records at the time, Kishpaugh added it to his listing of unofficial state records.
The Ironwood Daily Globe unearthed a nugget. While it wasn’t considered by Kishpaugh for his record book, it did bring back memories of changes seen in the game.
Ironwood’s John ‘Cutz’ Cavosie made a “tremendous boot on Oct. 10, 1925 in the final seconds of a game at Oliver Field here in which Ironwood swamped Menominee 41-0. Cavosie apparently was back to punt, but instead he dropkicked the ball squarely through the goal posts 55 yards away. He was in his senior year that fall and was captain of the team. He played a big role in the rout on Menominee by scoring on runs of 42, 51 and 67 yards.”
Record Toppled
So it was quite the event when, nearly 19 years later, junior Derrick Underwood broke Poirier’s mark on a cold October Friday at Inkster.
A week earlier, Underwood had made his first field goal of the season, a 23-yard boot in overtime to give Ecorse its first victory of the year in five starts, 9-6, over River Rouge. This time, his kick gave Ecorse a 3-0 victory over the Vikings, although in decidedly less dramatic fashion as the kick came in the second quarter.
“The strange thing is I didn’t even know that I was kicking it from the 44-yard line. To be honest, I wasn’t paying that much attention and it didn’t look that long,” Underwood told the Detroit Free Press in 1976. “But I got a real good snap on it and an excellent hold.
Red Raiders coach Patrick Kearney believed the kick would have been good from another five or 10 yards out.
“It felt good when I hit it,” added Underwood, “but because I was in front of the goal posts, I couldn’t tell whether it went over or under the crossbar. But I saw my teammates jumping up and down on the sidelines and I knew it made it.
“I was pretty loose because I figured that if I missed, we still had another half to come back and win it.”
Underwood’s accomplishment garnered national attention in the June/July ’77 issue of Joe Namath’s National Prep Sports magazine. At the time, Jerry Spicer of Hobart (Ind.) High School held the national record with a kick of 61 yards in 1975.
Exasperation to Jubilation
Underwood, who also served as the Red Raiders’ quarterback and defensive end, guided the team to Inkster’s one-foot line in that same game as the clock wound down. But with the lead, instead of pushing for the end zone, they let time expire.
A year earlier, in 1975, the Ecorse players watched their season disappear after a single game.
“The school millage was defeated just prior to the start of that season,” said Underwood, recalling his high school days some 45 years later. “I was the starting QB for the Red Raiders through my senior year ('78). We were heartbroken that our season was over after the first game against Muskegon Heights. No energy for that game.
“We were foaming at the mouth to be playing organized football. Some of us played flag football to stay active.”
“I was just practicing holding for a teammate,” Underwood had told the Free Press back in October 1976. “Eventually I thought I’d try and I got to be pretty good at it.”
“I didn’t take kicking seriously at all,” he states now. “I wasn’t a dedicated kicker. My stars were aligned in my head as being the next Thomas Lott.”
Lott, a Parade All-American out of San Antonio, Texas, played quarterback at Oklahoma, where his coach, the legendary Barry Switzer, once called him the greatest wishbone quarterback in Oklahoma history.
“Went down to Tennessee State University and found out how much football I didn’t know,” Underwood said.
Reminiscing he added, “Looking back, wouldn’t change a thing growing up in Ecorse.”
Equaled, then Topped – in the Same Game
Underwood’s mark would hold in Michigan until 1979, when junior Harold Moore of Dearborn equaled, then topped the mark in a season-ending game against Plymouth Canton.
Moore, a left-footed, straight-on kicking specialist, matched Underwood’s record with a 54-yard boot in the game’s first half, and then topped the record with a 55-yard field goal during the second half.
“I’ve never seen anyone with the leg power he has,” said his coach, Dick Ryan. “His 55-yard field goal cleared the bar with 20 feet to spare.”
Over the next two seasons, three players – Mike Prindle of Grand Rapids Union (1980), Bob Hirschman from Sterling Heights Ford (1980), and Dave Blackmer of Farmington Hills Harrison (1981) – would match Moore’s longest kick.
Since then, only five players have matched or exceeded 55 yards. John Langeloh of Utica shattered the mark in 1985 with a 58 yarder. Doug Kochanski of Warren Woods-Tower is the state’s current record holder, with a kick in 1994 that traveled 59 yards before splitting the uprights. The successful kick came in his final high school contest.
In these days of more and more specialization, one wonders, will Michigan ever see one of 60 yards or more?
Ron Pesch has taken an active role in researching the history of MHSAA events since 1985 and began writing for MHSAA Finals programs in 1986, adding additional features and "flashbacks" in 1992. He inherited the title of MHSAA historian from the late Dick Kishpaugh following the 1993-94 school year, and resides in Muskegon. Contact him at [email protected] with ideas for historical articles.
PHOTOS: (Top) The Detroit Free Press told the story behind Derrick Underwood’s record field goal for Ecorse in its Oct. 30, 1976 edition. (2) Battle Creek Central’s Jim Yore was one of the earliest record holders for longest field goal in Michigan high school history. (3) Alfred Davis also was a standout fullback for Port Huron. (4) Underwood also played quarterback and defensive end for the Red Raiders. (Photos gathered by Ron Pesch.)