At Hudson, Winning Starts with the 'Ride'
November 2, 2017
By Doug Donnelly
Special for Second Half
HUDSON – It was a couple hours before kickoff for the Hudson Tigers, and head coach Tom Saylor didn’t think his team was focused enough.
“It was early on in our winning streak,” said Saylor. “Everybody was kind of laughing and just not thinking about the game. I told them to get on the bus and we drove right out of town, past the cemetery and I think we drove clear to Clayton (a town about six miles away). The players were thinking, ‘What is this guy doing?’”
The home game for Hudson turned into a road game – complete with a bus ride. A tradition was born.
“I thought we played better on road games,” said Saylor, who coached the Tigers through their record-setting 72-game win streak during the 1970s. “There weren’t so many distractions.”
Friday night, Hudson’s players will board the bus once more this season and take the trip from the high school locker room into downtown Hudson to Thompson Field, where the Tigers play their home games. Hudson will take on Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central in a Division 7 District championship game.
The head coach now is Chris Luma, who was a quarterback for Hudson during part of that win streak. He said the bus ride is a little shorter these days, but remains a surreal moment for all Tigers players and coaches.
“Coach Saylor liked to only make right turns,” Luma said. “That was his thing. We’d go out of the school and only make right turns to get to the field. Now, we just come out of the school, go down Maple, go right past my house and turn and go to the stadium. It’s about a five-minute ride.”
And it takes place in total silence.
“I don’t even know how to explain it,” said Tigers running back Malik Ray, who has more than 1,500 yards rushing. “It’s a really different experience. It’s legit. We get on the bus and some kids pray and others just think about the game. We don’t have time to mess around. Once we hit the seats, it’s go time. There’s no joking around. No way.”
Luma said every so often a young player will board the bus and talk or say something and a captain will quickly let him know the bus ride is done in silence.
“I’ll get on the bus, count them up and make sure we have everybody and give them the look,” he said. “It’s all quiet. We drive to the stadium, pull up and the players get out and go to the shed. Everyone has their own routine.”
Hudson has been home to a lot of big games on Friday nights over the years. The Tigers’ tradition is well known. Hudson held the national high school football winning streak record of 72 games for 22 years. Thompson Field has been the site of a lot of those Hudson wins and impactful games.
“The place has held more huge games than any other venue in Lenawee County over the past 60 plus years,” said Hudson sports historian Bill Mullaly. “Thompson Field has been around since 1955, and there have been many exciting, thrilling and very meaningful games played there with upwards of 5,000-plus people watching, especially back in the winning streak days.”
Before 1955, Hudson’s field was located in a low area right next to the current stadium, which sits on a hill in town and was moved because the old field was prone to flooding. The stadium is not on campus, somewhat atypical at the high school level.
Saylor used to live right next to the stadium, on the hill.
“I would wake up and see the stadium every morning,” he said.
Luma said the bus ride is different to the ‘home’ game than it is for an actual road game.
“When I was a player, I’d sit right next to Coach Saylor,” he said. “For road games, we’d go over my assignments, what he expected out of me. We’d talk about situations and what I should say or do in the huddle. I think those times sitting on the bus with him is one of the reasons I went into coaching.
“Riding to a home game, though, there was no talking. It’s still that way.”
Luma has had a remarkable coaching career at Hudson, winning 175 games, including a Division 7 championship in 2010. Friday will be Hudson’s second game ever against St. Mary, a traditional power from Monroe County with a couple of MHSAA championships to boast about – including its most recent in 2014, a Division 6 championship. The Falcons are competing for the first time in the Division 7 playoffs.
Ironically, both teams run the ‘T’ offense and both teams have strong rushing attacks. Hudson (9-1) was the Lenawee County Athletic Association champion while SMCC (6-4) got into the playoffs at 5-4 after navigating a difficult Huron League schedule.
No matter the weather, Thompson Field figures to be a packed house.
When it’s game time, Ray will board the bus, make the silent ride, get to the stadium and play catch for a few minutes with Hudson quarterback Andrew Valdez. When the team is ready to take the field, they’ll leave the shed and take turns with the rest of the team touching a sign above the door that says “The Team, The Team, The Team.”
Then – and only then – will it be game time.
“On the bus ride to the game, you’ll see people on the streets and they are waving at you and they are excited,” Ray said. “You can see joy in their eyes.
“Anytime you play in a playoff game, it’s a truly great experience. Playing one more game with these guys … its more than I can say.”
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 Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Hudson’s players enter Thompson Field at the start of a game this season. (Middle) Malik Ray works to elude a Morenci defender during a Week 2 win. (Photos by Mike Dickie.)
Driven to Dominate, West Catholic Dethrones 2024 Champ to Reign Again
By
Scott DeCamp
Special for MHSAA.com
November 30, 2025
DETROIT – The 2024 season didn’t finish the way that Grand Rapids West Catholic’s football team had intended. The 2025 season didn’t begin the way the Falcons would’ve hoped.
At the end of the day, two defining defeats and other adversities along the way set the stage and helped the 2025 squad peak at the right time.
West Catholic proved as strong as it’s been all season, and then some, in a 42-14 victory over Pontiac Notre Dame Prep in the Division 5 Final on Sunday at Ford Field. The title was the Falcons’ first since 2022, their eighth in program history, and it marked the seventh-straight Finals appearance in which they’ve emerged victorious.
“Unbelievably proud of the way we played. It was one of those things where we knew we had that type of potential in us,” fourth-year West Catholic coach Landon Grove said.
“It’s been an up-and-down season with a lot of variables with injuries. We had a lot of injuries pile up each week, but they never flinched. The amount of adversity we faced this year – we lost captains, we lost underclassmen starters, upperclassmen starters – and it was just a next-man-up mentality.”
West Catholic (13-1) opened the season with a 32-21 loss to Grand Rapids Northview, then ripped off 13 straight victories.
The most momentous win along the way was a 21-20 overtime triumph in its District Final at archrival Grand Rapids Catholic Central, which had ended West Catholic’s 2024 season with a 21-18 defeat. GRCC also had ended West Catholic’s 2023 season in their Regional Final in another tight matchup, 30-28.
Once they returned to the Finals on Sunday, the Falcons left no doubt. They made plays all over the field, starting with senior quarterback Grady Augustyn’s 79-yard strike to junior Thomas Puksta to put their team on top, 7-0, just 4½ minutes into the contest.
West Catholic worked with short fields the rest of the first half, thanks to its stingy defense, and the Falcons stretched the lead to 28-0 midway through the second quarter on the following plays: a one-yard TD run by Augustyn (with 2:30 left in the first quarter), senior Connor Olszewski’s three-yard scoring run (10:34 left in the second), and Puksta’s 25-yard TD reception from Augustyn (5:54 left in the half).
“It feels great just to do it with this class. Our class has been working its butts off this whole year, last year,” said Augustyn, who finished 9-of-18 passing for 199 yards. “We were, like, ‘We’re not letting this happen again.’ … We kind of just made a pact, saying, ‘We’ve got to be tougher than (last year). That wasn’t West Catholic football all year, and that wasn’t West Catholic football that game (against GRCC).’
“So, coming back and then winning in overtime (against GRCC this season) showed us that, like, ‘Hey, we could do it and that’s West Catholic football. That’s how you play games.’ And then, just winning this championship, it just means a lot to our whole team. It means a lot to the big man over there (gesturing toward Grove). It just means a lot for all of us.”
Notre Dame Prep (11-3), which was attempting to repeat after winning its first Finals title a year ago, got on the board in the final minute of the first half on senior Anthony Tartaglia’s two-yard run.
However, West Catholic completely broke it open early in the third quarter on back-to-back pick-6s – the first by senior Cal Peterson covering 43 yards only 21 seconds into the period, and the second by senior Christian Patterson for 30 yards barely two minutes into the quarter.
“When we’re at our best at West Catholic, our defense is our strength,” Grove said.
West Catholic outrushed Notre Dame Prep, 190-65, as the Falcons outgained the Irish in total offense, 389-258.
West Catholic junior Collin Abram led all rushers with 154 yards on 17 carries. Falcons senior Noah Gillespie paced the defense with a game-high 10 tackles.
“Our defense put us in a great spot every time – three-and-outs, getting us at the 30, 35 (of Notre Dame Prep) every time, so it just helped us there,” Augustyn said. “And then our O-line played wonderful those quarters and we just kept rolling, kept rolling – (motioning toward Puksta) brought his big-boy pants and, ‘What would we be complaining about now?’”
Puksta had a game to remember for West Catholic, hauling in six passes for 161 yards.
For Notre Dame Prep, senior starting quarterback Sam Stowe finished 8-of-11 passing for 67 yards. He suffered a shoulder injury in the contest that made throwing the ball very painful, he said in the postgame press conference. Irish senior Drake Roa went 8-of-13 passing for 123 yards, including a 60-yard TD toss to senior Brody Sink to cap the game’s scoring with 11:51 remaining.
Sink had five receptions for 110 yards. Senior Henry Ewles and sophomore Chris Artinian led Notre Dame Prep defensively with eight stops apiece.
“You know, it’s not how you want to finish the year,” Notre Dame Prep coach Pat Fox said. “We’re very proud to come back and defend our 2024 state championship. West Catholic today, fine football team. They did some tremendous things on the offensive and defensive lines and controlled the flow of the game. All credit to them. They did a great job. I’m proud of the way our kids battled. I love those kids, and it’s hard to say goodbye to them.
“I think a lot of times, you can look at a game and you can say there were some plays that maybe didn’t go our way. At the end of the day, West Catholic won at the lines, and that was the deciding factor,” Fox added. “It wasn’t a play or two. Tonight, they were the better team and they did a great job.”
After the game, Grove expressed his pride in carrying on the strong West Catholic tradition but noted that he’s only a small part in the Falcons’ success.
West Catholic is now tied for 10th in MHSAA history with eight Finals championships, pulling even with Grand Rapids Catholic Central on the all-time list. Over their 10 Finals appearances, the Falcons have won titles in 2010, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2022, and 2025.
“I’ll say this, we live in a world where people don’t think kids are tough anymore, (but) they’ll do exactly what you ask them. These kids have epitomized what young men are capable of doing,” Grove said about his team. “That’s why this game is so great. This game is what tells them the truth every day. It told the truth today, that they’re a great football team. They get told the truth in practice, they get told the truth in the weight room. I mean, these kids answered every challenge.
“This is all them, this is all them. I couldn’t be more proud.”
PHOTOS (Top) Grand Rapids West Catholic quarterback Grady Augustyn (6) finds his receiver during Sunday’s Division 5 Final. (Middle) Collin Abram (43) attempts to get out of the grasp of a Notre Dame Prep defender. (Below) Augustyn hands off to Connor Olszewski (7).