Snowbirds Soar Again As 8-Player Power
October 4, 2019
By Chris Dobrowolski
Special for Second Half
GAYLORD — After the first three weeks of the football season, it didn’t look like anyone was going to be able to stop Gaylord St. Mary.
The Snowbirds, after all, had scored 215 points over three convincing victories during their first season since making the move to compete as an 8-player team.
But that high-powered, explosive offense was ground to a halt over the last two weeks. It wasn’t because of a sudden lack of execution by St. Mary. Nor was it due to a stout defense rising to the occasion. Rather, it was back-to-back forfeits by opponents who weren’t able to field teams that sidelined the Snowbirds’ dynamic attack with an unwanted midseason break.
“Our kids want to play, but unfortunately it is what it is,” said Gaylord St. Mary head coach Kevin O’Connell. “It stunk for the kids because I know they really wanted to look forward to Friday nights, especially homecoming.”
St. Mary tried to turn the two-week pause into a positive. They hit the reset button and went back to focusing on fundamentals, with short periods of live contact during quick, but effective practices.
“Our practices have been nothing short of awesome,” said O’Connell.
St. Mary will find out this week against Suttons Bay if the time off disrupted its offensive flow. But the players are confident the break was not a hinderance.
“I don’t think it broke our rhythm. I think it brought us closer together,” said quarterback Brady Hunter. “We were able to bang heads with each other, get some frustration out.”
Hunter is one of a multitude of weapons the Snowbirds have in their veer option attack. The senior quarterback is joined by a stable of talented running backs in seniors Steven Koscielniak and Logan Murrell, and juniors Christopher Koscielniak and Dominic Keister. Senior center Rory Curran anchors the offensive line.
“I like this offense,” said Steven Koscielniak. “This is what our team is about, quick and fast.”
While the Snowbirds’ scoreboard numbers are eye-popping, the team’s individual stats are more modest – partly because those main threats didn’t play in second halves of two games St. Mary was thoroughly dominating. Also, there is enough talent on board to share the wealth and not miss a beat.
“It’s everybody. There’s not just one player who runs it. It’s the whole team,” said Steven Koscielniak.
As the quarterback, however, Hunter is thrust into the important role of leading the group, a task he does well. The three-sport standout, who also excels at basketball and baseball, fittingly, has his pilot’s license.
“He’s one of the best leaders,” Steven Koscielniak said. “No doubt about it. He pushes us to the next level. He pushes us in practice, when we’re lifting.”
“He conducts himself the right way in everything,” O’Connell said of his signal caller. “He conducts practices. He speaks respectfully. He’s a great leader.”
Each of St. Mary’s skill players are returning starters, but it’s been a completely different experience this season for the Snowbirds, who were depleted by injuries and suffered through a 2-7 grind a season ago.
“We took our lumps,” said O’Connell, in his seventh year in charge of the Snowbirds. “A lot of that had to do with we were senior-laden the year prior and then a lot of the seniors last year didn’t get quality reps the year prior. High school football is extremely cyclical.”
Still, St. Mary had a good outlook for 2019. It had speed, athleticism, leadership and experience all on its side, plus a better fit as an 8-player team for a school its size.
“We definitely saw it coming,” said Hunter. “Last year we had a little bit of a rough season. Coming into 8-man we had all of our skill players returning. We knew this offensive power was here.”
The offense has been so impressive that it overshadows what the defense can do, but St. Mary is tough on that side of the ball as well. The Snowbirds’ depth allows them to have only a few players who play on both sides of the ball. Kyle Murphy and Chris Grody are disruptive on the defensive line, while Murrell leads the defensive backfield and Christopher Koscielniak – who his coach lauds for his toughness – is an all-state caliber linebacker.
“He’s not physically imposing, but he is so tough,” said O’Connell. “He’s disciplined. He’s good.
“We’re not big in stature. We just have a lot of tough kids.”
The astonishing thing is the Snowbirds have only started to tap their potential on offense. The team hasn’t even utilized some of its capabilities yet.
“We like to spread ourselves so we’re very diverse. If a team comes and stops our run, we’ve got a great spread offense, a great wing set and a lot of stuff we can throw at them,” said Hunter.
The time to introduce some of that could be coming as the schedule ramps up considerably when St. Mary finally steps back onto the field. The matchup at Suttons Bay is a showdown between unbeaten teams and is followed by contests against a pair of current 4-1 teams in Vestaburg and Mio — the latter a rematch from a 48-32 Week 2 game — and 3-2 Brethren.
“It’s definitely going to be fun,” said Hunter. “Those blowout games aren’t really fun for anyone. Suttons Bay’s a great team. Mio, (Vestaburg and Brethren) — they’re all great teams. It’s going to be a good battle towards the end of the season, and it’s really going to prepare us for playoffs.”
Chris Dobrowolski has covered northern Lower Peninsula sports since 1999 at the Ogemaw County Herald, Alpena News, Traverse City Record-Eagle and currently as sports editor at the Antrim Kalkaska Review since 2016. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Gaylord St. Mary’s Logan Murrell (7) follows Steven Koscielniak (1) and another blocker around the edge during a Week 3 win over Central Lake. (Middle) The Snowbirds bring down the Trojans' T.J. Schultz. (Photos by Sports in Motion.)
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.