VanderLeest Working to Help Reeths-Puffer Make Most of Opportunities Ahead
By
Tom Kendra
Special for MHSAA.com
September 7, 2022
Tayte VanderLeest is a prototypical receiver and safety, with great size (6-foot-4, 200 pounds) and speed (4.5 seconds in the 40-yard dash).
Muskegon Reeths-Puffer first-year coach Cody Kater also gushes about the senior’s work ethic and attitude, and concludes by saying, “He’s the kind of kid you want to date your daughter.”
Weaknesses?
“I would say he’s too nice,” said Kater, a two-time all-stater at Montague who went on to play quarterback at Grand Rapids Community College and Central Michigan. “We’d like to see him a little grittier, but he’s a gamer and I have seen him flip that switch. I expect him to do that this Friday night.”
Reeths-Puffer (2-0) plays one of its biggest football games in years Friday, when it travels across town to face Muskegon (1-1) in the Ottawa-Kent Conference Green opener for both teams.
Historically, it hasn’t been much of a game, with Muskegon holding a lopsided 22-1-1 edge in the all-time series, and with most of those games in the blowout category. Muskegon has won the past nine games by an average of 44 points.
That puts the Rockets into a somewhat ideal position – no pressure, but with the opportunity to make a huge statement.
“It’s very exciting,” said VanderLeest, a returning all-conference receiver who has received interest from several Mid-American Conference schools including Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan and Miami (Ohio). “We are 2-0, which is great, but this is the kind of game where we can really prove ourselves. We want to show that we belong in big games like this.”
Puffer opened the season with a convincing 32-20 win over visiting Grand Haven, then hit the road last Thursday for a 38-14 win over St. Johns.
Muskegon, meanwhile, has not looked like its normal dominating self thus far (although playing a pair of strong opponents certainly has been a contributing factor). The Big Reds rallied from an eight-point, fourth-quarter deficit for a 20-14 win over visiting East Kentwood in the opener, then lost 49-16 on Friday to reigning Division 2 champion Warren De La Salle Collegiate. East Kentwood bounced back last week to defeat Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice, and De La Salle hasn’t lost since the 2020 Division 2 championship game.
Some of the issues for Muskegon are injuries and youth, with 13th-year head coach Shane Fairfield looking for more seniors to step up in leadership roles.
VanderLeest and other strong senior leaders like quarterback Brady Ross and center/defensive tackle Hunter Allison have sparked the Rockets’ quick start. The soft-spoken VanderLeest is more of a leader-by-example, although Kater said he has noticed him becoming more vocal with the younger receivers and defensive backs.
VanderLeest is one of those players who has football in his blood, literally, as his father Rob VanderLeest was an all-state lineman at Muskegon Catholic Central and went on to play four years at Michigan under Gary Moeller and Lloyd Carr.
“Football is in my DNA,” explained Tayte VanderLeest. “It’s been part of my life as long as I can remember. Now I’m a senior, and I feel the pressure on me to live up to the standards that my dad set.”
He will play a key role defensively from his strong safety spot, where one of his main duties will be trying to tackle Muskegon’s dynamic junior duo of running back Jakob Price and slotback Destin Piggee, preventing long TD runs and forcing the Big Reds to march the ball down the field.
VanderLeest had five tackles and an interception last week at St. Johns, in a game that was tied at halftime before Puffer pulled away with a 24-0 scoring edge in the second half.
“He has a knack defensively for knowing where he needs to be and always ending up around the ball,” explained Kater, who also was the offensive coordinator at Montague during the 2020 season, helping the Wildcats to an undefeated record and the Division 6 championship. “A lot of that stuff you can’t really teach. Because of that, we’re letting him roam around a little bit back there.”
On offense, VanderLeest and fellow senior wideout Clyde Bartee are the Rockets’ home run threats. Kater also lauded the stalk blocking of that duo during the first two games, allowing Ross and junior running back Brody Johnson to find running room downfield.
VanderLeest, who had five touchdown receptions last year en route to first-team all-OK Green honors, had a big game offensively in the opener against Grand Haven, making six catches for 106 yards – highlighted by a 47-yard touchdown reception.
Another storyline going into Friday’s game involves Kater, who played for former Muskegon coach Tony Annese at GRCC and was hired last spring as Muskegon’s offensive coordinator. However, Kater departed shortly thereafter to join former Lowell coach Noel Dean’s staff in Tipton, Ga. Kater then returned to West Michigan on Dec. 31, when he was named Puffer’s new coach.
Kater, 30, is calling the offensive plays for R-P, while his former CMU teammate Alex Smith – who most recently served as head coach at Holton – is the defensive coordinator.
The bigger goal for the Rockets, beyond this week’s showdown at historic Hackley Stadium, is to get into the playoffs and then win a playoff game – something they have not done in 30 years since their memorable, undefeated 1992 season, which ended with a Class A title.
Puffer has qualified for the playoffs five times since that championship season, but each of those postseason appearances were “one and done.”
Kater is encouraged that R-P has enough high school football players to field freshman, junior varsity and varsity teams – something that less than half of the teams in the O-K Green can claim. He also notes that the Rockets have good athletes and numbers in their middle school and youth programs.
He believes this year’s senior leaders like VanderLeest, who hung in there through a 3-6 junior season and a coaching change, will be remembered as the ones who turned the tide.
“I don’t think you’ve seen the best of Tayte yet,” said Kater, the sixth head coach for the Rockets since Hall of Famer Pete Kutches led them to that 1992 title. “We are coaching him extremely hard, and he is getting better. He is a pillar of our team.”
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) Muskegon Reeths-Puffer’s Tayte VanderLeest (5) works to break away from a Grand Haven defender during an opening-night win. (Middle) VanderLeest cuts upfield during the 32-20 victory. (Photos by Joe Lane.)
Capac Ends 14-Year Postseason Drought, Eager to Begin 8-Player Playoff Run
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
October 29, 2025
Not having the option to qualify for the 8-player postseason wasn’t something the Capac football concerned itself with the past three seasons.
Enrollment was too high at the school to be included in the MHSAA playoff field, and while the 2024 team most certainly would have made it, co-coach Troy Schneider said that since there was nothing that could be done about it, the players weren’t really concerned with it.
But this year, with the opportunity finally there, it lit a fire under the Chiefs.
“It was very motivating for us,” Capac senior quarterback Brody Tesnow said. “All summer, we had decent numbers show up to workouts. Our senior group was really pushing everyone. Our coaches have been on us all year, telling us this is our year that we can do this. I mean, really, we had a decent season last year, and I just feel like that pushed me more to come back this year and be even better.”
Capac is back in the playoffs for the first time since 2011, and at 7-2 is coming off its best regular season since 2001.
That year, the Chiefs advanced to the Division 5 Semifinals. This year’s run will start Friday night with a matchup at Brown City in 8-Player Division 1. A win would be the program’s first in the postseason since 2009.
“I’d love that,” Tesnow said. “That would be a great feeling for us, all the seniors. I remember that win over Deckerville (in Week 8), that was a surreal feeling. I could only imagine what a playoff win would feel like, especially after 14 years of not being in the playoffs.”
It’s been a long road for Capac, which has now had its first back-to-back winning seasons since running off four straight from 2008-11.
Enrollment at the school was near its height back then, peaking at 613 in 2008 before starting a steady decline. It first dipped below 400 in 2015, and by 2020 it was under 300.
That, naturally, led to a decline in football participation as well, and the team was unable to complete the 2020 season, a year where nearly everyone was granted access to the postseason because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
After a 1-8 run in 2021, with a total school enrollment of 211, Capac made the decision to switch from 11-player to 8-player. In each of its first three seasons under the new format, Capac was over the 215-student limit for competing in the postseason. This year, the school is at 203.
“I didn’t have any decision in that, but our numbers had dropped steadily for a number of years in the school,” said Schneider, who had coached at Capac in 2000s, and took over as varsity coach with Bill Nestle in 2024. “When we came out of the (Blue Water Area Conference), we were a small school, and we were getting pretty well destroyed. Once we moved into the other conference (Greater Thumb), we were with Ubly and Harbor Beach, and I wasn’t coaching at the time, but those are some really good teams, too. There were quite a few people who did not want to make a move to 8-man, but the writing was on the wall with the numbers at the school and the numbers in the football program. It’s been a good move for us. Obviously, a lot of schools have gone to that in the last five years.”
When the program moved to 8-player in 2022, the current senior class was entering high school. Schneider and Nestle had been coaching that group in middle school, and it had shown quite a bit of promise.
There are currently 15 seniors on the varsity team, and while there are only 18 players total on the roster, the junior varsity and middle school programs are thriving, which has people in the high school program optimistic about a future that was pretty uncertain not long ago.
“We’ve got some potential coming up – things are looking pretty good,” Schneider said. “The junior group is small, so they’re going to have small numbers next year as seniors, but the three juniors we have are starters. The next three to four years, it should stay steady and we should be solid.”
But there’s still plenty of work to be done this year, and Capac is confident heading into the postseason despite the fact it lost to Brown City 61-22 in Week 3.
Much of that confidence comes from that Week 8 win against 2024 8-Player Division 1 champion Deckerville. The 28-20 triumph ended Deckerville’s 20-game win streak, as it had not lost since the 2023 Semifinals. It was the first regular-season loss for the Eagles since Sept. 29, 2023.
“Starting the season we went kind of slow, but beating Deckerville told us that we were on that top tier,” senior defensive end and tight end Wiley Roose said. “I mean, after that game, it was crazy. To me, it was definitely the highlight of my sports career in high school. The whole team really came around.”
Beating Deckerville is an accomplishment in its own right, but the fact the Eagles had this season defeated Brown City and Kingston – which delivered Capac’s two losses – was another boost of confidence for the Chiefs, who are ready to show how far they’ve come this fall.
“We watched some film from the game (against Brown City) earlier in the season, and we were just comparing what we were then to how we are now,” Tesnow said. “It’s a huge difference. I’m pumped. We’re proving everyone wrong, and I love that feeling of being the underdog and surprising people.”
Tesnow and his teammates are hoping to continue doing that, but what they’ve done already to get the Capac program back on the right track is a massive accomplishment in itself.
“Coach Nestle and I care about all our players, but seeing these kids develop for five years, go through school, go through some of the losing seasons early in middle school then slowly build and get better – I can think of a number of kids and how they improved with being more aggressive, being tougher and taking the next step,” Schneider said. “It’s really nice to see the kids develop through the program. It’s been sweet. It’s that much better because it’s a great group of kids. They’re wonderful.”
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) Capac huddles up during the closing minutes of its Week 8 win over Deckerville. (Middle) Sam Schneider (22) carries the ball and follows his Chiefs blockers as they attempt to create an opening against the Eagles. (Photos courtesy of the Capac football program.)