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.
St. Patrick Immediately Sets Tone On Way to Claiming 1st Title Since 1992
By
Jason Juno
Special for MHSAA.com
November 22, 2025
MARQUETTE — Portland St. Patrick has been no stranger to the MHSAA Finals since moving to 8-player football, but the Shamrocks had come up short of a title in three appearances since 2017.
They were back in the Division 2 championship game Saturday, and again facing a team from the Upper Peninsula, just like the other three times. But this time, St. Patrick made it clear from the opening kick it had no intention of going back below the Mackinac Bridge without the championship trophy.
The Shamrocks rode the momentum from a fast start and blanked Felch North Dickinson 53-0 at the Superior Dome.
“It means a lot,” St. Patrick senior back Brady Leonard said with the trophy in his hand. “Having a couple classes before us come here and not be able to finish the job, it was not just for our team, but it was for everyone that came and wasn’t able to finish it.”
Aiden Fandel set the tone when he took the opening kick to the Nordics’ 3-yard line. Jerryd Scheurer ran three yards on the first play from scrimmage, and Leonard ran in the conversion for an 8-0 lead just 20 seconds into the game.
“It was huge, just to flip the field position right away was a big deal,” St. Patrick coach Patrick Russman said.
The Shamrocks scored two more times during the first quarter, taking advantage of excellent field position.
St. Patrick’s Tyler Thelen blocked a punt to set up its next score. The Shamrocks took over at the North Dickinson 9, and Charlie Thelen caught a four-yard pass from Scheurer on the second play of the drive for a 14-0 lead.
The Nordics went for it on fourth-and-1 at their own 29 on the ensuing possession, but they were stuffed for no gain, giving St. Patrick the ball not far from the red zone.
Leonard ran eight yards for the touchdown and a 20-0 lead with 5:34 still left in the first quarter.
What a start.
"It was very important," Leonard said. "We knew if we came off hot, we knew that we'd be able to punch them in the mouth and we'd get off to the start that we normally have.”
The Shamrocks scored two more times in the first half, both on runs by Hudson King, who led with 120 yards on 10 carries. His 30-yarder came just seven seconds into the second quarter, and his 21-yard rush gave them a 33-0 lead that held until halftime.
The Nordics drove into St. Patrick territory twice in the period. The first stalled at the 44 when the game was still within reach at 26-0. The second got all the way to the 24, but incomplete passes on third and fourth downs gave St. Patrick the ball back with four seconds on the first-half clock.
North Dickinson just couldn’t overcome that start, or the talent level of the Shamrocks.
“We’ve been punched in the mouth before, but they’re way better,” Nordics coach Mike Christian said. “They were just so much better than us today. They’re bigger, faster, stronger. We just couldn’t get anything going.”
The second half proved to be more of the same. St. Patrick reached the end zone three more times, on short runs by Caleb Pline and two players listed as linemen, Logan Krieger and Nick Pung.
St. Patrick finished a perfect 13-0, and went unbeaten even with a tough schedule. Russman said the Shamrocks started off with tough Mid-State Activities Conference foes Merrill and Morrice. They ended the regular season with a win over eventual Division 1 runner-up Blanchard Montabella. Their playoff run included wins over Mendon, ranked No. 1 in the final media poll of the season, and last year’s Division 1 champion, Deckerville.
“We didn’t have any time to not be ready this year,” Russman said. “We’ve had a pretty good run of some very quality football teams throughout the stretch of the year. They didn’t give us any rest, so the kids did a good job of getting ready each week. Sometimes you slip, and these guys didn’t slip.”
He credited the team’s chemistry for the special season. The practices were superb all year. And they of course had some really good players.
“Our line has been working hard and they just continued to grind it out today, and our backs finished plays on the offensive end,” Russman said. “We’ve been trying to get a faster and faster defense each week, and I think they’ve really done that and accepted that challenge.”
St. Patrick’s last Finals win came when it was playing 11-player football in 1992, in Class D. North Dickinson was seeking its first championship but had to settle for its second runner-up finish (11-player, Class D, 1998).
The Nordics’ 17-game winning streak came to an end. They finished at 12-1 this year after winning their final five games last season.
North Dickinson canceled its varsity season in 2023, announcing at the time that it would play a JV schedule with only four upperclassmen on the roster. Two years later, the Nordics made it to the final game.
“My seniors would have been sophomores then,” Christian said. “I didn’t want to throw them into that right away. This is kind of what we were aiming for when we did that.”
It all worked out. Missing the playoffs last year proved to be a good motivator as well.
“They really put the extra work in,” he said. “They’re such great kids, and they worked their tails off all summer and I’m just so proud of them.”
PHOTOS (Top) Portland St. Patrick players celebrate a touchdown Saturday at Superior Dome. (Middle) North Dickinson quarterback Brady Jungwirth (15) works to pull away from a tackler. (Below) The Shamrocks’ Charlie Thelen (12) goes high to pull in a pass. (Click for more from Cara Kamps.)