Port Huron Proud to Wear Perfection After First 9-0 Regular Season Since 1952
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
October 28, 2026
The T-shirts celebrating Port Huron High’s Macomb Area Conference Blue football title came in a little later this year, but for good reason.
They were in need of a design tweak to add another, even bigger accomplishment: the school’s first 9-0 season since 1952.
“It was getting to be six and seven (wins), so I looked it up and I didn’t let anybody know except for the athletic director,” Port Huron coach Dan Perkins said. “We won our league and she shared with me the shirt design. and I said, ‘Well, hold off on those, we might want to add something to it.’ So it’s pretty neat.”
Port Huron defeated rival Port Huron Northern 13-10 this past Friday to finish off its perfect regular season. While the players may not have been aware of exactly how long it had been, they did know they were part of something special.
“It means the most to me, definitely, to do it with these guys and this type of team,” senior linebacker and tight end Aiden Forstner said. “Coming through, I haven’t seen a team do it (go undefeated), and I wanted to be the first to do it. All summer long, that’s what we thrived for. Every day in the weight room, all the conditioning, all the days that sucked, we thrived to be 9-0. Getting that accomplishment means a lot to me. (Beating Northern) definitely made it special, because everyone was expecting a blowout in that game, but it being as close as it was, and it being a nail-biter, it will stay with me forever. It being the school from the north, it made it 10 times better.”
It’s not as though the Port Huron program has lacked success. This year’s playoff berth extends the Red Hawks’ current streak to eight years. The 2019 team won a District title, as did the 2011 group, which came the closest to similar perfection, falling in its final regular-season game to finish 8-1.
“It’s crazy, and Northern’s last one was 1986, so for the whole town that’s quite an accomplishment,” Perkins said. “Doing that is very, very hard. We had a team in 2011 that’s getting inducted into the (Port Huron Sports Hall of Fame) that was a juggernaut, and we just slipped up the one game. It’s quite an accomplishment.”
Led by a suffocating defense, the Red Hawks have been overpowering throughout the season, winning every game outside of Weeks 1 and 9 by at least two scores. For the season, they’ve held opponents to 12.3 points on average while scoring 37.2. The offense is quarterbacked by junior Jaxon Johnston, a 6-foot-2 junior with a big arm who is in his first year in the program.
He’s been able to grow into the system as Port Huron’s defense has been dominant from start to finish. Only Anchor Bay (in overtime) and Madison Heights Lamphere scored more than 14 against Port Huron this season.
“We can hang our hat on our defensive crew, and that’s very nice,” Perkins said. “As long as our field position is right, going 80 yards against us is hard, real hard to do. And running the football has been real difficult for teams; we’re real stout up front. But every one of our defensive backs has multiple interceptions, and as a team we’ve got 19. The whole group has done a fantastic job, and coach (Brandon) Wardlow has done an awesome job with them, and the kids have really just responded. They take on the challenges. That’s been our calling card, and then the offense has been kind of a work in progress and has gotten better throughout the year.”
The defensive line is leading the charge on that side of the ball, paced by tackles Dylan Volpe and Ja’Michael Thomas, who create havoc up the middle. Both are juniors who stand over 6 feet tall and weigh in at 280-plus. Volpe has drawn interest from Division I college programs across the country, reporting offers from Florida State and Eastern Michigan.
And they’re surrounded by even more playmakers up front.
“Our D line is crazy. I think all of us have over three sacks,” Volpe said. “Me, Ja’Michael Thomas, Parrison Rome on the other end, Jayvon Bolar, Hunter Rock and Bryant (Braley), our D line is crazy.”
It’s also making things easier for the rest of the defense.
“It makes it so much easier,” senior linebacker Jaxon Winchester said. “Sometimes the linemen can’t even get to us because they’re putting in so much work. It’s just great to have, especially like Volpe and JT up there, they’re just so fast off the ball. It’s so nice to be part of, and I get some plays out of it.”
The next test for the Red Hawks is a matchup with New Boston Huron on Friday at Memorial Stadium in the opening round of the Division 3 playoffs. A win would give them a school record-tying 10th win and make them the first team in school history to reach 10-0.
Port Huron is the No. 1 seed in its region, meaning any game through the Regional Final would be played on the Red Hawks’ home field. But with Warren De La Salle Collegiate and Detroit Martin Luther King lurking as potential District and Regional opponents, the Red Hawks still feel as though they are doubted.
“I believe we’re very underlooked,” Forstner said. “Even if it’s like, ‘Where’s the competition that these guys have played?’ I feel like we’ve played at the level competition is, and where we need to be, and it will show when those weeks come.”
If they’re able to defend home field over the next three weeks, the Red Hawks would become the first team in program history to advance to a Semifinal, which would probably warrant one more shirt design.
“It would mean so much,” Winchester said. “Senior year, so it’s the last year, and I really think we can do it. We have the team, we have to come in and work every day like we have been all season. Port Huron Red Hawks coming, man. That’s all I have to say.”
Paul Costanzo served as a sportswriter at The Port Huron Times Herald from 2006-15, including three years as lead sportswriter, and prior to that as sports editor at the Hillsdale Daily News from 2005-06. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Genesee, Lapeer, St. Clair, Sanilac, Huron, Tuscola, Saginaw, Bay, Arenac, Midland and Gladwin counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Port Huron’s Dylan Volpe (64) works against a blocker during his team’s Week 2 win over Marysville. (Middle) Quarterback Jaxon Johnston surveys the field. (Below) Carter Bankston (11) contends for the ball with a Marysville player. (Photos by Ryan Dowd/Blue Leprechaun Photography.)
Rose's Legend Grows in Shores Repeat
January 22, 2021
By Jason Schmitt
Special for Second Half
DETROIT – Game planning for an all-state football player like Brady Rose certainly isn’t easy.
In fact, it’s downright awful just to think about.
The Muskegon Mona Shores senior quarterback once again proved that point to be true Friday afternoon, leading his team to a 25-19 victory over Warren De La Salle Collegiate and a second consecutive MHSAA Division 2 championship at Ford Field in Detroit.
Rose rushed 22 times for 154 yards and a pair of touchdowns. But it was a 65-yard scamper early in the fourth quarter that proved to be the play of the game – a game filled with key plays by Rose.
“We ran that play quite a bit (today), but I wasn’t being patient, I wasn’t bouncing it to the outside,” Rose said. “(This time) I just let it develop, let it do what it was supposed to do and I bounced it outside and took it down into the red zone.”
The play lifted the spirits of the entire team and provided a much-needed boost of confidence.
“We get the ball down there, everybody is excited again. Everybody is hyped,” he added. “After that run, we knew we were going to punch it in. Anytime we get into the red zone, we have to punch it in, and we did.”
Three plays later, senior wideout Keondre Pierce scored on a 10-yard pitch to the right side, giving Mona Shores a 19-7 lead with 9:25 left in the game.
De La Salle, which trailed 13-0 at halftime, didn’t give up. The Pilots answered right back on a 52-yard touchdown run by senior JC Ford with 7:58 to play. The drive took just 1:21 off the clock and also included a 23-yard pass from Ford to senior running back Brett Stanley to help set up the touchdown run.
After a quick three-and-out, the Sailors then relied on their defense to get the ball back. Coach Matt Koziak’s team came up with a clutch stop on fourth down, on De La Salle’s half of the field. Seven plays later, Rose scored his second touchdown of the game, this time from four yards out to give his team a 25-13 lead with just 1:47 left to play.
De La Salle did move the ball down the field quickly, scoring on a four-yard keeper by sophomore quarterback Brady Drogosh with 16 seconds to play. But it wasn’t enough, as Rose recovered the ensuing on-side kickoff attempt and then took a knee to end the game.
“They did have us on our heels a little bit,” Koziak said. “We jumped up on them, 13-0 going into halftime, then they come right back in the second half. We said it at halftime, ‘They’re not going to go away. They’re not going to let you win this, you’ve got to go take it.’”
The Mona Shores defense, led by senior Kyree Hamel, who finished with 11 tackles and an interception, held De La Salle to just 50 total yards and three first downs in the first half. The Pilots totaled 62 yards on the ground during their drive to start the second half. Ford provided a change of pace for De La Salle, running the ball six straight times to begin the drive. After runs of 15 and 10 yards by freshman Rhett Roeser moved the ball inside the 5-yard line, Ford capped the drive with a four-yard touchdown run to get his team on the scoreboard.
“We didn’t run a lot of plays in the first half, and we couldn’t get into a rhythm,” De La Salle head coach Dan Rohn said. “So we went into halftime and said, ‘Let’s change things up a little bit and up the tempo.’ It’s kind of been JC’s role all year long. We haven’t needed it in the playoffs because he’s playing two ways.”
Ford finished with 111 yards on 15 carries and those two touchdowns. Stanley had 42 yards and Roeser added 38 for the Pilots. Defensively, junior Will Beesley had a game-high 20 tackles, while senior Jayden Conklin added 14. Junior Dionte Dandridge had an interception.
Mona Shores (12-0) finished with 311 rushing yards. Along with Rose, junior Elijah Johnson also had a good game on the ground. He carried the ball 14 times for 81 yards and had a nine-yard touchdown in the first half. Rose also returned three kicks for 48 yards, averaged 39 yards on his three punts, blocked an extra point and had eight tackles on the other side of the ball.
“What a legacy for him to leave,” Koziak said of Rose, who will play collegiately at Ferris State University. “Obviously he’s a tremendous player, a tremendous competitor. It’s so easy to root for a dude like that. He’s not 6-foot-3, he doesn’t run a 4.3 40 (yard dash). He’s not a 5 star. But all great stories usually have an underdog in it, so it’s easy for people to get behind him, for his teammates to get behind him. They love him. I think when we look back on one of the great players, and performances, in the state over the past two seasons, he’s got to be in the conversation.”
Rohn, who completed his first year at De La Salle after having won four Division 5 championships at Grand Rapids West Catholic, said he was proud of his team for battling through a lot of adversity over the past year.
“We went against one of the best football teams in the state of Michigan and one of the best football players in the state of Michigan,” Rohn said. “Hats off to Matt (Koziak) and his team. I have nothing but respect for their program and the way they played today. Who would have thought that we’d be sitting here on January 22 with an opportunity to win a state championship?”
Koziak praised Rohn for all his accomplishments at De La Salle, while also crediting players from all over the state for forging ahead despite all the obstacles they faced over the past year.
“I’m proud of our young men. I’m proud of the state of Michigan, the football players,” Koziak said. “These young men have been through the ropes. They’ve been on an emotional rollercoaster. Football prepares you for life. But this season, holy cow, it’s going to teach you disappointment, it’s going to teach you hope, it’s going to teach you surprise, it’s going to teach you humility. I have no doubt these young men are going to be good fathers, and better sons, better husbands because things didn’t go their way this year. Whether it was wins or losses, or COVID, or a pause in the season, whatever it was. They’re all going to be better human beings for it, and I think that’s a special message we tried to preach all year.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Muskegon Mona Shores quarterback Brady Rose drops back to pass during Friday’s Division 2 championship game at Ford Field. (Middle) De La Salle’s Will Beesley makes his move as Shores defenders close in. (Click for more from Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)