Harbor Beach is Title Town
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
November 23, 2012
DETROIT – Harbor Beach always has considered itself a football town. Beginning with its last run to an MHSAA championship game in 1991, the Pirates have amassed six seasons with at least 10 wins – including four over the last decade.
But the 1,600 residents living along that stretch of Lake Huron shoreline now can call it the home of a champion as well.
Harbor Beach claimed its first MHSAA football title Friday, beating two-time champion Beal City 35-10.
Only two years ago, the Pirates were coming off their third straight losing season. But they bounced back with a District title in 2011, and also set a school record for wins this fall finishing 13-1 – guaranteeing this group will be remembered with special regard among the many who have made marks on the program.
“We’re state champions,” Pirates senior Aaron Ginther said. “That’s all I have to say,” leaving junior quarterback Eli Kraft to elaborate.
“I couldn’t be prouder of our team. We lost Sloan earlier in the year, and everybody gave up on us. But what matters is we stuck together and we believe in ourselves, and we believed that if we worked hard every day in practice we could get it.”
“Sloan” is senior running back/linebacker Sloan Klaski. He's 6-foot-2 and 195 pounds and ran for 1,041 yards and 19 touchdowns last season, but was knocked out for this one by an injury on opening night.
That could have knocked the feet out from under Harbor Beach’s title march before it got started. Instead, the Pirates began a stand that carried through the season’s final day.
Harbor Beach’s defense began Friday by showing off that resolve. Beal City took the ball away on an interception barely more than a minute into the game, but gave the ball back on downs when senior nose guard Josh Keyes led a fourth-down pile-up that stopped the Aggies inches from the goalline.
The Pirates held their ground again when Beal City appeared to be gaining steam. Down 28-10 with 1:53 to play in the third quarter, the Aggies were driving to make the game close again and pushed to Harbor Beach’s 2-yard line. But Keyes and junior linebacker DeAndre Ridner stopped an inside run for no gain, and senior defensive end Brandon Oswald chased down the runner on a fourth-down pitch that also failed to reach the end zone.
Five minutes later, junior Colin Cook snagged an interception that effectively ended the game.
Beal City had scored 40 or more points in eight games this fall and never fewer than 25. The Aggies also averaged 372 total yards per game entering the day but gained only 291 in the Final. They became the 10th team to score 10 or fewer points against Harbor Beach – although Schelke said after that his team played above its usual high level to shut down the Aggies.
“The momentum changed when we didn’t get that score at the beginning. It really stoked them up and set us back a little bit,” Beal City coach Lou Rau said.
“We might’ve made three stands. One time we held them to a field goal too, and that felt like a little bit of a victory,” Schelke added.
And his offense did plenty to give the Pirates a cushion.
Kraft, an all-state honorable mention, completed 8 of 13 passes for 168 yards and two scores and ran for 70 yards and another touchdown. His scoring passes set the tone early – the first 54 yards to Ginther and the second 69 yards to junior Travis Essenmacher, both before the end of the first quarter.
Ginther also had 12 tackles at linebacker, and Keyes had 10. Senior defensive end Kyle Kramer had two sacks for the Pirates.
Junior running back Ty Rollin ran for 76 yards and Beal City’s lone touchdown. Junior linebacker Hayden Huber had 13 tackles and sophomore linebacker Alex Schafer had 10. Kicker Paul Anders, a foreign exchange student from Germany playing football for the first time this season, drilled a 30-yard field goal – the first in a Division 8 Final since Climax-Scott’s J Rustenholtz hit a 26-yarder in his team’s 42-8 win over Crystal Falls Forest Park in 2004.
Beal City fell to Forest Park that season in a Semifinal. But the Aggies are used to making this trip – Friday’s was their sixth championship game appearance, with their last title coming in 2009. The Aggies finished 13-1. “Thirteen wins in a season is pretty admirable, and you can’t ask for a better group of guys,” Rau said.
Harbor Beach's community came out in en masse for a Thanksgiving send-off parade that sent chills through Schelke and his players alike. They then followed the Pirates to Ford Field on Friday.
“We are a football town. We have a great tradition at Harbor Beach starting with coach John Jack Dillon that led the team here in '91, and it’s just carried on,” Schelke said. “We’re on a great streak right now with great seniors leading, and we think we have some great players coming from behind. There’s a lot of alumni here that played on great Harbor Beach teams.”
“Our fans are fantastic, and they support us, and they had a blast today.”
Click for full statistics and to watch a replay of the game. See below for the full press conference.
PHOTOS: (Top) Harbor Beach senior Derek Pfaff (7) holds up the Division 8 championship trophy to the crowd with teammates Brandon Pfaff (4) and Justin Lasceski. (Middle) Pirates senior Aaron Ginther (47) pulls in a catch with Beal City's Sam Schafer giving chase. (Click for more from Terry McNamara Photography.)
Mendon Coach Takes Reins from Mentor
By
Wes Morgan
Special for MHSAA.com
September 6, 2016
It wasn’t the right time for an interview because John Schwartz didn’t want to be the center of attention. Besides, he had said all he wanted to say in February when he announced his retirement.
More than anything else, just a few minutes prior to the Mendon varsity football team opening the 2016 season against Bridgman, he wanted to address his attire.
Swiftly moving through the parking lot toward his car, Schwartz looked up, made eye contact with me, and his voice boomed through a shop broom of a mustache, “I put my shirt on backwards.”
Of course he did. His routine was off after more than four decades.
Schwartz exchanged pleasantries as he stood bare-chested about 30 parking spaces from the entrance to the field named after him. He checked to make sure the tag of his T-shirt was at the back of his neck this time.
We walked back to the stadium and talked about his kids and his grandchildren, whom he adores, and for whom, along with his wife, he retired from the game he treasures. When he turned in his letter of retirement to the Mendon school board in February at the age of 66, he said it was time to make more time for them.
He then climbed the bleachers to the press box, where he plans to watch the Hornets and provide advice when requested. Of all places, most of our interaction these days is on Facebook, where he’s quick to like a family photo.
I never took John Schwartz, a man who enjoys crafting things out of wood in his spare time, for a social media fan. But I learned over the years he’s full of surprises.
For a long time, Schwartz boasted the all-time best winning percentage in Michigan prep history. At the end of the 2014 season, his record at Mendon was 269-43 for a .862 percentage. That would have been a good time to retire. He knew, however, the Hornets were in for a rough 2015 season with low numbers in terms of bodies, and, as it turned out, victories. Mendon went 5-5, making his career record 274-48 and his winning percentage .851 — second all-time behind former Schoolcraft coach Larry Ledlow (.853).
He took one for the team.
It’s Bobby Kretschman’s team now, and you’re not going to find anyone in the small town of Mendon who would disagree with Schwartz concerning Kretschman’s worthiness to continue a tradition that includes 13 MHSAA championships — 10 of which were with Schwartz at the helm.
Kretschman, a former star linebacker for the Hornets and an assistant coach with the program for 10 years, was groomed for this role. In the same week in March when his first child, Connor, was born, Kretschman officially accepted the job.
Ranking third all-time in program history with 360 career tackles, including 11.7 stops per game as a senior on the 2005 Division 8 championship team, Kretschman fully understood the significance of becoming the school’s 23rd head coach.
“I’m excited,” he said at the time. “It’s going to be fun. We’re replacing a legend here. This is why I went into coaching and teaching. I didn’t think it was actually going to be at Mendon.”
The Hornets are 1-1 this season under his watch, with a loss to an excellent Cassopolis team in Week 2. But after the Hornets topped the Bridgman Bees in Kretschman’s debut, the new ball coach sounded an awful lot like the old one.
He asked the players gathered around him in the west end zone if they wanted to win a state title this year — perhaps a reach to some after Mendon went .500 last fall. They all believe they can. So did every kid who put on the green jersey since 1989.
Schwartz would always tell you that the Mendon staff coached the kids the same from the Rocket level to varsity. The plays, the verbiage and the expectations were consistent.
And it was all underscored by a sense of responsibility.
“There’s a great sense of pride at Mendon and I’ll be damned if that’s going to be lost,” Kretschman said. “That’s why you want to put the time into things and make sure you’re putting the best product out there you can. Your name is on it and you want it to be done right.”
Wes Morgan has reported for the Kalamazoo Gazette, ESPN and ESPNChicago.com, 247Sports and Blue & Gold Illustrated over the last 12 years and is the publisher of JoeInsider.com. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Berrien, Cass, St. Joseph and Branch counties.
PHOTO: Former linebacker Bobby Kretschman takes over the Mendon program this season from longtime coach John Schwartz. (Photo by Wes Morgan.) VIDEO courtesy of JoeInsider.com.