Football Playoffs: Finals in Review (with videos)
November 28, 2011
Game over. But what a way to finish.
How should we end a four-month MHSAA football season? With 26 hours worth of Finals over the course of two days, viewable from the comfy confines of Detroit's Ford Field.
Following are my final takes from our Finals weekend. Click on the headers below to see our coverage from each game, and check out the videos for a taste of some of the weekend's hoopla.
The first video was done by Potterville grad and MHSAA Scholar-Athlete award winner Sam Davis, and has at least a couple of us ready to put our helmets back on and hit the field. The other is a slice from one of the most raucous student sections from the weekend.
1st and 10
5 and 4 to No. 1: Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice and Flint Powers Catholic weren’t the first teams to reach Finals with a 5-4 record entering the postseason. But both doing so and winning speaks loudly not just of their respective talents, but also on the gains each made by playing tough opponents. Both came out of tough leagues – Brother Rice was one of three finalists from the Detroit Catholic League Central, and Powers played much larger schools in the Big Nine. Both also played and lost to eventual MHSAA champions during the regular season – Brother Rice against Division 3 winner Orchard Lake St. Mary, and Powers against Division 7 champ Saginaw Nouvel.
Like a rock – or Stone: Detroit Cass Tech linebacker/fullback Royce Jenkins-Stone might’ve been the most impressive all-around player from the weekend. The 6-foot-1, 215-pound Michigan prospect ran for 65 yards and had seven tackles – numbers that don’t stick out. But he scored on a 32-yard run, a three-yard pass and a 36-yard interception return.
Just the beginning: Technicians freshman quarterback Jayru Campbell will be in the statewide lens for the next three seasons after throwing for 240 yards and five touchdowns in the Final. He’s 6-3 and 170 pounds, and easily blended in among his star-studded teammates in just his first year of high school. He’ll also have junior Jordan Lewis (four catches, 89 yards, TD) to throw to for another year.
Good company: Brother Rice’s Devin Church was the other individual performer who seemed to wow the media crowd most with his Finals performance. He capped a 900-yard playoffs with 244 and three touchdowns – and drew comparisons from Lowell coach Noel Dean to past star backs like Kevin Grady and T.J. Duckett. Church will sign with Northern Illinois this winter.
Making tracks: Talk about a running attack, Orchard Lake St. Mary’s came within eight yards of putting three backs over 100 each in its Final. The Eaglets ran for 479 yards total – falling just 53 short of the MHSAA Finals record book minimum. Spencer McInnis ran for 214 yards and three scores, while Grant Niemiec and Parker McInnis both ran for 96 yards and a touchdown.
Rough and rumble: Zeeland West’s physicality in the Division 4 game was simply stifling. Keep in mind the Dux were without all-state linebacker Josh Blanton because of an injury. Then note that the team had just eight players weighing 200 pounds or more – and only three between 250-275. Zeeland West ran for 288 yards, but more impressively held Marine City to 79.
Charging forward: The weekend’s biggest stunner had to be Flint Powers over Lansing Catholic, for a number of reasons. Powers entered the postseason 5-4 (see above), Lansing Catholic was 9-0. The Cougars had beaten the Chargers 37-17 in Week 2. Lansing Catholic was ranked No. 1 by The Associated Press, while Powers was unranked.
Just the beginning, part II: Ithaca sophomore quarterback Travis Smith is another who will be watched closely after a big-time Ford Field debut. He threw for 299 yards and a touchdown and ran for another score in the Yellowjackets’ Division 6 win. Ithaca will graduate a lot in the spring. But the 6-1, 180-pound Smith provides the base needed for a quick rebuild.
Backing it up: Saginaw Nouvel’s Bennett Lewis was another player as good as advertised to those who hadn’t seen him play this season. He ran for 200 yards and five touchdowns in a half in Division 7, using both speed and muscle to make his way. At 5-foot-9 and 181 pounds, the Division 7-8 AP Player of the Year is getting some Division I looks and is at least a high Division II prospect.
Consistently contending: Here’s an idea why Mendon’s is such an impressive machine – eight of John Schwartz’s assistant coaches also played for him. The ninth, Bob Critz, has been at Schwartz’s side since the latter took over the program in 1989. During the post-championship press conference, Schwartz revealed that he’d had cancer surgery in June and his assistants ran the program through all of the summer prep.
Numbers game
55,360 – Number of fans who attended the 2011 Finals. The total was slightly higher Friday than Saturday.
5 – Number of touchdown passes by Cass Tech’s Campbell and number of rushing scores by Nouvel’s Lewis. Both tied MHSAA Finals records.
56 – Number of points scored by both Saginaw Nouvel (Division 7) and Flint Powers (Division 5) to set the Finals record for most in a championship game. Nouvel scored all of its points in the first half. Both games ended with scores of 56-26 -- and oddly, no other MHSAA game ended with that score this season.
413 – Total yards by Powers junior quarterback Garrett Pougnet, just 13 shy of the MHSAA Finals record set by Holland Christian quarterback A.J. Westendorp in the 2008 Division 4 Final.
97 – Distance in yards of Zeeland West senior Brad Mesbergen’s Finals record kickoff return in the Division 4 Final.
Link up
MHSAA.tv: See full postgame press conferences (and field interviews after the Divisions 3 and 4 Finals).
Fox Sports Detroit: Dan Dickerson and John Wangler wrap the two days of finals.
QB Leads Ithaca Back to Legendary Level
November 27, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
DETROIT – At halftime of Friday’s Division 6 Final, Ithaca coach Terry Hessbrook told his quarterback Jake Smith he was the best player on the field and needed to play like it.
Or something like that – no doubt a little more directly, with a few more words that got right to the heart of Smith’s importance in helping the Yellowjackets avoid the disappointment of taking home the second-place trophy for the second season in a row.
Two quarters later, the list of Ithaca quarterbacks who have put up memorable performances at Ford Field grew by one.
Cementing his place in a line of signal callers who have led Ithaca to 83 wins in 84 games, Smith directed a second-half rally that pushed the Yellowjackets past Clinton 27-20 for their fifth MHSAA championship in six seasons.
A year ago, Smith and his teammates left the field after a loss to Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central ended a national-best 69-game winning streak. This time, Ithaca trailed 13-0 early in the third quarter before scoring 27 straight points over 15 minutes to take a lead it wouldn’t relinquish.
“He knew he could get more out of me, and as an offense we definitely produced,” said Smith of his coach’s halftime cajoling. “I wasn’t really panicking. I knew if we get behind, we’ve still got to keep playing. I wasn’t going to let it happen like it happened last year. I didn’t want to experience that feeling again, so I just played as hard as I could.
“It means so much to everybody on our team. Everybody really just wants to go out on top. Everybody wants to be number one. We finished that climb this year and we stuck the flag in the mountain, and it just feels so great.”
And it surely was a bit of a relief too.
Many of the team’s 17 seniors saw the field for most of the 2014 trip to Detroit, perhaps offering a little more motivation to bounce back for the program’s fifth perfect season over the last six.
“It was immense pressure, and to be honest, that made me very nervous. I talked to the players about it before the game today, that I was so happy because since day one last year after we got beat their goal was to get back to Ford Field,” Hessbrook said. “And I thought we had a championship-caliber football team, but I think a lot of people had championship-caliber football teams and somewhere along the line they get caught up and something goes wrong.
“I was glad they were able to play their last game in an Ithaca uniform here at Ford Field and have a chance ... to play for a championship.”
The Yellowjackets (14-0) finished off their best defensive performance of the run in terms of points allowed, giving up only 107 this fall despite dealing the first and only losses to three contenders over the last four weeks.
That defense played a massive role Friday, holding a Clinton rushing attack that averaged 297 yards per game this season to only 179. The Redskins had only 14 yards rushing over five second-half possessions after taking the 13-0 third-quarter lead.
But while the Yellowjackets held Clinton’s offense in check, it came down to Smith to carry them over the top.
The Ithaca run of quarterbacks starring at Ford Field started with Alex Niznak, who ran for five touchdowns in 2010 to lead the Yellowjackets to their first title. Then came Jake’s older brother Travis Smith, who put his name all over the record book in 2011 and 2013 wins – sandwiched around 2012, when back-up Logan Hessbrook came in after Travis Smith was hurt and led Ithaca to another MHSAA Finals victory.
Jake Smith was decent in last season’s Final, running for 90 yards and a score and throwing for 147 yards and the other touchdown as Ithaca fell 22-12. But his first half Friday was not at all noteworthy – six yards rushing and 60 passing.
Then came Hessbrook's pep talk.
“The first half, we did what we wanted to do,” Clinton coach Scott McNitt said. “We kept him in front of us. We didn’t let him get loose. But the third quarter, he found something. And he showed he was the best player on the field.”
Four minutes into the third quarter, Smith scored Ithaca’s first touchdown on a 14-yard run. Three and a half minutes later, Smith connected with senior Spence DeMull on a 22-yard pass in the seam, and two plays later connected with DeMull on the same route for a score that put the Yellowjackets ahead 14-13.
The next possession saw Smith's performance climb toward another level.
With 14 seconds left in the third quarter, he dropped back and rolled left, spun away from a near-sack, down the left sideline – and just as it looked like he would dive at the near pylon, Smith side-stepped right and whirled into the end zone. Ithaca 21, Clinton 13.
Smith added one more touchdown run from a yard out to put the Yellowjackets up 27-13 with 7:47 to play. Noah Poore’s 4-yard run at 4:59 pulled Clinton back within seven. But after Ithaca ran the clock down to 1:47 on its next possession, Clinton went to the air and completed only one of four passes before Ithaca senior Derek Teed ended the threat with a fourth-down sack.
Teed had three of his team’s 11 tackles for losses. Senior linebacker Jace Demenov led the effort on that side of the ball with 10 tackles, and junior linebacker Lane O’Boyle had eight.
Smith ended with 126 yards rushing to go with three scores and 180 yards passing with a touchdown.
For Clinton, senior running back/linebacker Mathew Sexton ran for 141 yards and a score and had six tackles. Senior linebacker Ken DeShano had 11 tackles.
Sexton also played a major role when Clinton fell to Ithaca 41-22 in the 2013 Final, and ran for more than 2,000 yards this season as the Redskins (13-1) charged through this run toward the rematch, eliminating reigning champion St. Mary among one of the most impressive slates of playoff opponents in any division.
“The gauntlet we’ve gone through these past four weeks – St. Mary, Madison Heights (Madison), (Jackson) Lumen Christi, (Grand Rapids) NorthPointe Christian, may have taken some of what we needed in the tank out of us,” McNitt said. “But these kids battled to the end … and had a chance at the end.”
Coaches almost always decline to compare teams from year to year, and especially championship winners.
But Hessbrook admitted this run was a little sweeter than some of the rest because of what it allowed for the players who walked off sadly a year ago and the legacy they were able to finish on a winning note.
“It would be hard for me to put them into numerical order and say this one is my favorite one or that one is my favorite one,” Hessbrook said. “But I’ll say this about this group of seniors: I don’t think that any class at Ithaca has ever dedicated themselves to winning a championship more than this class has, and that’s why it was so important for them to do that."
PHOTOS: (Top) Ithaca quarterback Jake Smith breaks a tackle during Friday's Division 6 Final. (Middle) The Yellowjackets celebrate their fifth MHSAA title in six seasons.