Transformed Shores Continues to Rise
September 8, 2015
By Tom Kendra
Special for Second Half
This is not your father’s Muskegon Mona Shores football team.
Or even your older brother’s.
This is not the team that went its first 51 years of football without making the MHSAA playoffs and whose only traffic jams leaving its parking lot occurred early in the third quarter – when the band was done performing.
Heading into one of the state’s marquee Week 3 matchups at home against perennial Division 1 powerhouse Rockford, Shores is looking to snap a 10-game losing streak against the Rams, which has included some forgettable affairs like a 49-7 loss in 2000 and 10-7 loss last fall, the Sailors’ lone regular-season defeat.
“Great job tonight,” Mona Shores coach Matt Koziak told his huddled players last Thursday night, allowing them a few seconds to enjoy their 2-0 start and a dominating 55-14 win over host Fruitport, before quickly shifting gears.
“But now we have Rockford coming to our place. We can’t make the mistakes we made tonight, or they will make us pay for it. We have to play top-notch.”
The emergence of Mona Shores as a power has changed the landscape of football, not only in the Muskegon area, but West Michigan as a whole. As other Muskegon-area schools struggle with declining enrollment – most notably Muskegon High, Muskegon Heights and Muskegon Catholic Central – Mona Shores is now the largest school in Muskegon County and a legitimate force, bursting onto the state scene with a memorable run to last year’s Division 2 championship game at Ford Field.
After putting up 55 points in back-to-back wins over Holland West Ottawa and Fruitport to open the season (and with their defense not allowing a single point), the Sailors are showing that the 2014 season was far from a flash in the pan.
“Last year we were the hunters; now we’re the hunted,” explained senior quarterback Tyler Trovinger, who set a school record with six TD passes in the Week 2 win over Fruitport. “We have to be great because no one is looking past us anymore.”
The Sailors’ fortunes, and attitudes, began to change in 2011 with the hiring of Koziak as head football coach. He turned out to be the perfect choice, as a 1994 Mona Shores graduate who cut his coaching teeth at Muskegon High School under Tony Annese, serving as offensive coordinator when the Big Reds won MHSAA titles in 2006 and 2008 and as head coach for one year in 2009.
His words upon taking the Mona Shores job in 2011 were prophetic:
“I'm tired of people badmouthing my school,” Koziak told The Muskegon Chronicle at that time. “I’ve heard people say the Shores kids are cake-eaters. It’s not true. There are a lot of blue-collar kids and families there. I’m excited to change the football culture.”
While Koziak knew Shores football history, he also was smart enough to recognize changes that needed to be made – beginning with the installation of the spread option, veer attack which was so effective across town at Muskegon High.
The most notable player was quarterback Tyree Jackson, who Koziak inserted into the starting lineup as a 5-foot-9 freshman. After struggling mightily and making people question whether the new coach was running the wrong system, Jackson sprouted to 6-4 and started throwing to targets like Asantay Brown and Marquon Sargent.
Brown is now a starting safety at Western Michigan University, Sargent is at Grand Valley State University and Jackson is a freshman quarterback at the University of Buffalo, but the Mona Shores system and the athletes haven’t missed a beat.
Trovinger (5-11, 200 pounds) has stepped into Jackson’s big shoes and possesses a cannon for an arm and terrific running ability.
Trovinger’s passing options are nothing short of an embarrassment of riches. Three of the starters in the Sailors’ four-wide attack have already made Division I college commitments – Hunter Broersma (6-2, 190) and Darece Roberson (5-9, 165) to Western Michigan and Kobe Burse (6-3, 205) to Miami of Ohio – with the fourth starter being dangerous Deandre Oakes-Owens (6-0, 175), an all-league selection as a defensive back last season.
“We have a ton of weapons, no doubt,” Trovinger said. “When we’re all focused, we’re a force to be reckoned with.”
The defense is led by two more senior standouts who could possibly sign with Division I schools. Dom Shermeta (6-0, 215) is a Chris Spielman clone at middle linebacker and a battering-ram fullback, and Christian Boyd (6-2, 280) is a run-stuffer at left defensive tackle.
Koziak said a big part of the Shores turnaround is the supportive administration, notably seventh-year athletic director Ryan Portenga, the outspoken, energetic and unapologetic leader of the Shores athletic program.
Portenga has written a book about the Mona Shores football turnaround and the storybook 2014 season, entitled: “Flipping Football: A True Story of Resilience and Transformation.” The book, which costs $20, will be released Friday, in conjunction with the Rockford game.
“It’s a story that needed to be told,” said Portenga, who noted that half of the proceeds from the sale of the book will go to the Shores athletic program.
So … with all of this talent, all this excitement, all this momentum (even a book!), are the Sailors ready to take the next step and knock off the biggest kid on the block – Rockford? Or will the Rams’ mystique win out again?
It’s the same question Muskegon-area residents were asking last October, when the upstart Sailors traveled to historic Hackley Stadium to face the Big Reds, which had downed Shores 14 games in a row. Shores matched the athletes for Muskegon and made believers out of many in a convincing 48-27 victory.
While every eye in Muskegon was on that game, many eyes from around the state will now be on Sailor Stadium when a senior-laden Rockford team comes to town Friday, looking to swat away the latest challenger to its perch atop the West Michigan football heap.
Rockford (1-1) is coming off a 47-0 romp over visiting Holt, and will bring its usual big offensive line, bevy of running backs and unparalleled special teams – especially senior kicker and punter Quinn Nordin, who has committed to sign with Penn State University.
The Rams have extra motivation as coach Ralph Munger has 299 career coaching victories over his 36-year career, the first 12 spent at Frankenmuth and the past 24 at Rockford. His next win would make him the 11th coach in state history to register 300 wins.
Shores is not motivated to deny Munger, but rather to avenge last year’s 10-7 loss at Rockford. In that game, Roberson scored on a 79-yard run on the first play from scrimmage, but failed to score again, fumbling twice in the fourth quarter.
With a huge crowd expected for the rematch, Koziak said his players will be motivated to come out and not let another game against the Rams slip away.
“We talked about how Rockford beat us last year,” said Koziak, who is assisted on the varsity level by Brian Sikkenga, Holsey James and Aaron James, Chris Hilliker and Kyle Brott. “They have that in the back of their minds that they let one get away, and that’s motivation for them.
“I think there’s a new energy for football with what we’ve been able to build the last four years. The community has waited forever for this. They’re ecstatic.”
Tom Kendra worked 23 years at The Muskegon Chronicle, including five as assistant sports editor and the final six as sports editor through 2011. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Muskegon, Oceana, Mason, Lake, Oceola, Mecosta and Newaygo counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Mona Shores’ Darece Roberson strides for additional yardage during last season’s MHSAA Division 2 Final against Warren DeLaSalle. (Middle) Tyler Trovenger, surrounded by teammates, celebrates his third-quarter touchdown catch at Ford Field. He moved to quarterback this fall.
Playoffs Packed with Livonia Power
By
Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half
October 25, 2017
LIVONIA – Let the good times roll.
Football fans in Livonia have been blessed recently with the success of Livonia Public Schools’ football programs, and this season is no exception.
Churchill, Franklin and Stevenson all qualified for the MHSAA playoffs, and glancing at the pairings all have a reasonable shot at winning their Pre-District games and perhaps a District title as well.
Churchill and Franklin are both 7-2 and open Division 2 play as visitors, Churchill at Pinckney (8-1) and Franklin at Walled Lake Western (8-1). Stevenson will compete in Division 1 and, even though the Spartans are 5-4, will play host to Detroit Catholic Central (5-4). All three games are Friday at 7 p.m.
All three are members of the Kensington Lakes Activities Association. Franklin has made the playoffs three consecutive seasons and reached a Division 2 Semifinal in 2015. Churchill has qualified for the playoffs five of the last seven seasons and Stevenson, the most consistent program of the three, is in for the fifth time in the last six seasons. (Livonia Clarenceville, another public school in Livonia, is not part of the Livonia Public School system and did not make the playoffs this fall.)
The three head coaches agree that the source of this recent success is a thriving little league program, the Livonia Junior Athletic League. Four teams compete in the league – the Blue Jays, Eagles, Falcons and Orioles – and players range in age from 6 to 13. Those 6 and 7-year-olds compete in flag football.
The LJAL is the lifeline to the high schools because Livonia Public Schools does not sponsor middle school or junior high football.
“We’ve always had a strong little league program,” Franklin coach Chris Kelbert said. “With the little league program, our feeder program, we’ve worked hard to develop a system for them to do what we do.”
The Livonia schools haven’t always been so successful. Franklin, for example, won the first Class A title in 1975, then went 30 years before making its next playoff appearance. Stevenson made the playoffs just once in the first 19 seasons of the MHSAA tournament. But since 1993, the Spartans have qualified 16 times highlighted by a Division 1 championship game appearance in 2007 and a Semifinal appearance the following season.
Then there’s Churchill. The Chargers made the playoffs in 1979, then seemingly disappeared. Not only did they not make the playoffs again until 2004, the Chargers had one of the poorest runs in terms of victories in state history. From 1990-96 they won one game. At one point Churchill lost 34 consecutive. Following those rugged years the Chargers finished 2-7 five straight season (1997-2001).
Times have changed. John Filiatraut, now the head coach at Dearborn Divine Child, helped guide the Chargers out of those rough times as they won the school’s first District title in 2004 and finished 8-4. Except for a 1-8 season in 2005, Churchill has remained competitive since that bounce-back season.
Bill DiFillipo was an assistant under Filiatraut and is in his fifth season as Churchill’s head coach. He said talent in his program keeps improving and he credits the coaches, on his team and within the LJAL, for that progress. He also said the healthy rivalry that exists between the three schools has sparked enthusiasm and an increase in competitiveness.
“This is Churchill’s best run,” he said. “You have to have good feeder teams. We’ve done a good job of developing kids. Our senior class was 0-9 as freshmen, and they were 2-7 on the JV. Over at Franklin, Chris has done a good job. When Randy (Micallef) took over, Stevenson was down. Randy and his staff have done a good job of getting them back.”
Stevenson won just five games combined in 2010 and 2011. The Spartans made the playoffs in 2012 and missed the playoffs the following season, but then rattled off three straight appearances and will make it four straight this weekend.
The three programs annually play for a city championship. Stevenson has won the last two defeating Churchill and Franklin in each of the last two seasons.
Franklin’s only losses this fall were to Churchill and Stevenson, and the Patriots have won five straight since the second of those defeats.
Kelbert and his staff have done a remarkable job this season. Running back Isaac Moore was a part-time starter last season, and none of the other 10 starters on offense had started even one game. Franklin returned three starters on defense.
“We have a young offensive line,” Kelbert said. “We have two seniors there, and neither one played offense line before. But we’re clicking now. It’s been frustrating at times. We knew we had some good players coming back. After the Howell game (a 21-0 Franklin victory in Week 5), we saw some improvement. Our defense has been lights out all season. We adopted a new philosophy on defense. We wanted to be more athletic and have more speed. When Romeo won (the 2016 Division 1) title, they won it with small linemen who couldn’t be blocked. We figured we could use that philosophy. The game has changed dramatically in the 19 years I’ve coached in high school.”
Kelbert faced a different test this season. He’s starting his son, Jacob, at quarterback, and he’s just a sophomore. Jacob Kelbert played on the freshmen team last season after going through Livonia’s little league program.
“It has its challenges,” Kelbert said of coaching the eldest of his three sons. “I forget he’s young sometimes. I expect him to play like a senior.”
DiFillipo also has a first-year starter at quarterback, but at least this one was on varsity last season as a back-up. Junior Drew Alsobrooks has played well this season, and he’s benefitted from an experienced offensive line. Four seniors start on the offensive line and the lone junior, Ethan Gyurnek, started last season as a sophomore.
DiFillipo adds that it’s been a team effort.
“Our defense has played the best in the 10 years that I’ve been here,” he said. “We’re giving up 14 points a game.
“Franklin and us have had the best two defenses in our division (KLAA Gold). Grand Blanc has the best offense, and we held them to nine points. Franklin shut them out.”
It’s been a different season for Stevenson. The Spartans started 4-0, then lost three straight. They beat Salem, 31-10, in Week 8 before losing to Franklin, 35-21, in a KLAA crossover.
Micallef said he’s noticed an improvement in the level of skilled athletes to come through the three programs. Specifically in his program, players like quarterback Parker Graham, all-purpose athlete George Ferguson and two-way back Devin Dunn all have had experiences in other sports as well that have contributed to their competitive nature.
“The coaches have become progressively better across the board,” Micallef said. “And some of the kids who might have gone to private schools now are staying put. Catholic Central moving from Redford to Novi has had a hand in keeping some of the Livonia kids here.
“We have some really good athletes this season. Parker was a running back last year, and we played him in the secondary, too. But with him moving to quarterback, I’ve kept him off the defense. But I had him at linebacker last week, and he had like seven or eight tackles. Both him and Ferguson play basketball and baseball, and Devin is a multi-sport athlete, too. In crunch times, these kids have played in so many big baseball games or big basketball games that they’re not afraid to make the big play. They embrace that.”
Tom Markowski is a columnist and directs website coverage for the State Champs! Sports Network. He previously covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Clockwise from left, Churchill’s Martell Dooley, Stevenson’s Parker Graham and Franklin’s Isaac Moore are among standouts for the Livonia Public Schools’ three playoff-bound varsity teams. (Middle top) Churchill junior quarterback Drew Alsobrooks has stepped in well as the starter this fall. (Middle below) Senior linebacker Jacob Mass helps key a more athletic Franklin defense this season. (Below) Senior George Ferguson is one of the multi-sport athletes making major contributions to Stevenson’s success. (Photos courtesy of the Churchill, Stevenson and Franklin football programs.)