A Game for Every Fan: Week 3
September 10, 2015
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
League play begins this week for many teams across Michigan – and with favorites facing off immediately in games that eventually could decide who wins those conference titles.
The highlighted matchups below include a few of those, but mostly some of the last titanic nonleague battles we'll see this fall – at least, until we reach the MHSAA playoffs.
All games below are tonight unless noted. Follow all of the results as they come in at the MHSAA Score Center. And keep an eye on Muskegon vs. Grandville; with their next win, the Big Reds will become the first program in state history with 800 victories.
Bay & Thumb
Millington (2-0) at Essexville Garber (1-1)
This might not seem the caliber of a “best game of the week” from this area, but it’s been a sneaky-good matchup the last few years as Garber won in 2013 and Millington came back with a 28-19 victory on opening night in 2014. The Cardinals’ opening-night victory over Vassar this fall was a solid start, and the Dukes have scored 80 points total despite splitting their first two matchups.
Others that caught my eye: Marine City (1-1) at Marysville (1-1), Sandusky (2-0) at Bad Axe (1-1), Ortonville-Brandon (2-0) at Clio (2-0), Corunna (2-0) at Goodrich (1-1).
Greater Detroit
Detroit East English (2-0) at Detroit Martin Luther King (2-0)
King is expected by many to be the team to beat from the Detroit Public School League this season, and its first five opponents include reigning Division 2 champion Warren DeLaSalle (a 12-10 win), now East English and in two weeks rival Cass Tech. East English has opened with victories over 2014 playoff teams Walled Lake Central and Detroit Renaissance.
Others that caught my eye: Southfield (1-1) at Farmington (2-0), Lincoln Park (2-0) at Trenton (2-0), Clarkston (1-1) at West Bloomfield (2-0), Farmington Hills Harrison (1-1) at Oak Park (0-2).
Mid-Michigan
Grand Ledge (2-0) at Lansing Sexton (0-2)
While Grand Ledge looks early like possibly the Lansing area’s best team (Lansing Catholic is on the other side of that argument), the Comets can't look past an old rival. Sexton graduated a lot from last season’s Division 4 runner-up team, including the majority of its skill players on offense, but a new group is coming along – with the 0-2 start coming against two 2014 playoff teams.
Others that caught my eye: Lansing Catholic (2-0) at Williamston (2-0), Jackson (2-0) at East Lansing (0-2), Oscoda (1-1) at Vestaburg (2-0), Eaton Rapids (1-1) at Ionia (1-1).
Northern Lower Peninsula
Escanaba (2-0) at Gaylord (2-0)
There’s tons of excitement surrounding these programs as we head toward the middle of September. Escanaba is off to its first 2-0 start since 2011 and a win away from equaling its total from each of the last two seasons. Gaylord missed the playoffs a year ago and came back by starting this fall outscoring its first two opponents 94-6 – and won all three meetings the last time these teams had a series, from 2008-10.
Others that caught my eye: Lincoln Alcona (2-0) at Rogers City (2-0), Fife Lake Forest Area (1-1) at Indian River Inland Lakes (2-0), Grayling (1-1) at Maple City Glen Lake (2-0), Traverse City Central (2-0) at Traverse City West (0-2).
Southeast & Border
Saline (2-0) at Ann Arbor Skyline (2-0)
This might be the most highly-anticipated game in Michigan this weekend. Saline is playing like a team with arguably the state’s top quarterback (Josh Jackson) and coming off finishing runner-up in Division 1 – the Hornets then beat Rockford by 13 on opening night. And Skyline is playing like a team with two of the state’s most dynamic players in Daelin Hayes and Hunter Rison, opening with a pair of double-digit wins after entering the season with 12 straight losses.
Others that caught my eye: Morenci (2-0) at Petersburg-Summerfield (2-0), Hillsdale (1-1) at Brooklyn Columbia Central (2-0), Climax-Scotts (2-0) at Adrian Lenawee Christian (2-0), Homer (1-1) at Concord (2-0).
Southwest Corridor
Portage Central (2-0) at Stevensville Lakeshore (2-0)
These Southwest Michigan Athletic Conference West rivals again kick off the league schedule against each other after last season’s 20-17 Lakeshore win in Week 3 eventually decided the title. Five of their six meetings since joining the same SMAC division have been decided by 10 points or fewer – and those six meetings have resulted in three wins for each team.
Others that caught my eye: New Buffalo (1-1) at Cassopolis (2-0), Battle Creek Pennfield (1-1) at Coldwater (2-0), Paw Paw (2-0) at Sturgis (1-1), Kalamazoo Loy Norrix (1-1) at Kalamazoo Central (2-0), Battle Creek Lakeview (1-1) at Battle Creek Central (0-2).
Upper Peninsula
Negaunee (2-0) at Gladstone (2-0)
Gladstone likely was feeling similarly excited this time last fall when it ended a 22-game losing streak with a 3-0 start, only to drop its final six games. But the Braves have bounced back again and hope to follow last fall’s 24-19 win over Negaunee, which had to be considered an upset then and after as the Miners made the playoffs for the sixth time in seven seasons. They’re 2-0 after surviving a tough test last week from Calumet.
Others that caught my eye: Munising (2-0) at Felch North Dickinson (1-1), Ishpeming (2-0) at Calumet (1-1), Iron River West Iron County (2-0) at Iron Mountain (1-1), Marquette (0-2) at Sault Ste. Marie (1-1).
West Michigan
Rockford (1-1) at Muskegon Mona Shores (2-0)
The Rams are taking on their second 2014 MHSAA runner-up already this season, having fallen to Saline in Week 1 and now taking on the second-place team from Division 2. Rockford handed the Sailors their only pre-Ford Field loss in 2014, 10-7 in Week 3. But Mona Shores has had no problem putting points on the board despite replacing a Division I college quarterback – the Sailors have scored 55 in each of their first two games.
Others that caught my eye: East Grand Rapids (2-0) at Caledonia (2-0), Hudsonville (2-0) at Zeeland East (2-0), Grandville (2-0) at Muskegon (1-1), Scottville Mason County Central (2-0) at Whitehall (2-0).
8-Player
Rapid River (2-0) at Cedarville (2-0)
Together these two have played in three of the first four MHSAA 8-player Finals, and they’ll continue this growing rivalry game despite playing in different leagues for the first time since making the format switch. Cedarville's only regular-season losses of the last three years have come, twice, to the Rockets, who won 20-19 a year ago and haven’t lost a regular-season game since Week 9 of 2012.
Others that caught my eye: Peck (1-1) at Kinde-North Huron (1-1), Powers North Central (2-0) at Bellaire (2-0) (Sat.).
PHOTO: Grand Ledge’s 2-0 start included a 38-7 win over Holland West Ottawa in Week 2. (Click for more from HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
Pirates' Football Voice Ends 30-Year Run
November 12, 2019
By Tim Robinson
Special for Second Half
PINCKNEY — Bob Reason has been the voice of Pinckney High School football and basketball for more than 30 years.
It’s his voice you heard over the public address system, good times and bad, through wins and losses.
He’s always played it down the middle, in the style of public address announcers at Michigan Stadium.
“I get excited when Pinckney scores,” he said in the Pinckney Stadium press box last week. ‘But I don’t want to take away from the athletes.”
Reason, a 1961 Pinckney graduate who moved back to the house he was born and grew up in during the mid-1980s, announced his last football game Oct. 11, Pinckney’s homecoming game.
Fittingly, it was against Dexter, where Reason lived for more than a decade and, with former Dreadnaughts athletic director Al Ritt, helped pass a bond issue in the 1970s that built a stadium now named for Ritt.
At 76, Reason decided it was time to retire.
“I just enjoyed doing it, but at 76, I feel it’s time,” he said.
He’ll still do Pinckney basketball for at least two more seasons. His son, Tom, is the boys coach and grandson Dylan is a junior.
“I’m going to try to sucker him into announcing for the girls program when my daughter is old enough to play,” Tom said, chuckling. “But he wants to sit in the stands, and sometimes it’s nice to sit there and be a grandpa.”
It will be a well-earned retirement for Reason, whose athletic career at Pinckney ended when he tore a knee ligament on the first play of his senior football season.
He became the Pirates public-address announcer after moving back to Pinckney from the Toledo area.
“One of his first games was announcing my brother’s games,” Tom Reason said. “I remember being a rug rat running around the stands. I thought it was pretty neat. When you’re a young one, you think your dad is the coolest dad in the world because his voice is coming out of the press box.
“To this day, my daughters love it. They always go up and visit him and he gives them candy. It’s a neat thing. I’ve been around Pinckney athletics for a long time, and it’s neat to hear his voice.”
Bob Reason has been active in the community too over the last 30-plus years. He’s served on the Pinckney athletic boosters board and spent a quarter-century running Saturday morning basketball programs at Pinckney, including enlisting varsity players as referees.
And it’s the athletes that kept bringing Bob Reason back to the microphone.
Well, that, and a slight bit of chicanery the last couple of years.
“He tried to retire, but I wouldn’t let him,” former Pinckney athletic director Tedd Bradley said.
“I was going to retire five years ago,” Reason said. “(Bradley) said, ‘OK, but we’ll have to find someone, so you have to do it this year. And then the next year, they didn’t find anyone.”
Current AD Brian Wardlow finally bent to Reason’s wishes this year, hiring Pat Allen, who worked the Pirates’ final home game against Jackson this season.
“There were a lot of people there (at homecoming), and people who had been around for decades got to hear one last game,” Wardlow said. “When I was in Pinckney, Bob was our football announcer, too, so he’s the only voice I’ve ever known in football and basketball.”
And, through his years working for Pinckney athletic programs, generations of Pinckney athletes know him and say hello.
“We went to Disney World as a family a few years ago, and three people came up to us. At Disney World,” Tom Reason said. “They come up and say, ‘Hey, Mr. Reason!’ We can’t go anywhere without someone knowing him.”
Bob Reason said part of the impetus toward retirement was his eyesight, which had been slowly failing due to cataracts the last couple of years. He credits his longtime spotter in the press box, Linda Lambert, with helping him credit the right athletes at the right time.
“Some of the teams that have played have white jerseys with white numbers outlined in black, and it’s hard to see the numbers,” he said. “I could not have done the games the last two years without her.”
The man in the PA booth, so calm with his delivery, is a Pinckney Pirate through and through.
Take the 1989 season, for example.
The Pirates had made the playoffs with an 8-1 record and had drawn a home game with East Grand Rapids in the first round. Below the “Welcome to Pinckney” sign outside of town, he and some co-conspirators hung a sign that said, “Welcome, East Grand Rapids. We’ve been waiting for you.”
East Grand Rapids won the game, 37-30 on a touchdown in the final minutes, and Reason went to Flint to see the Pioneers play Oxford in the next round.
“I had a Pinckney hat on,” Reason said, “and a guy from East Grand Rapids saw my hat and talked to me about the sign.”
The gentleman, as it turned out, was more than a little chapped about the sign.
“I said, ‘We just wanted to welcome you,’” Reason said, laughing at the memory.
After all these years, he said, the games and players all roll together in memory, but the lure of high school sports remains.
“I still think high school athletes give all they’ve got,” Reason said, “every game they play, regardless of position. Athletics is not just about winning. It’s about learning to play with your teammates, developing your skills, trying to be the best you can be and learning life lessons. I think one of the most important things high school athletics gives all of our kids is never to give up. Regardless of what happens in your life, there’s tomorrow, and never give up. Keep trying and keep working, and I think that carries forward into life itself.”
“He’s always super-complimentary about every kid who’s out there trying,” said Wardlow, who grew up in Pinckney and has been employed by the school district since 2002. “It’s important in a community like Pinckney to have that guy you can always count on, and the community knows what it’s going to get.”
Reason said he’s not going anywhere.
“I don’t have any interest in moving,” he said. “I talked about moving to Florida once. I said to my kids, ‘Do any of you want to buy the house? I’ll sell it for $500,000.’ I was joking, of course, and they said, ‘No, Dad. It’s too much. We’ll give you a dollar.’”
So Bob and his wife, Dorothy, are staying in Pinckney.
“The football team gave me a cushioned seat for the stands,” he said. ‘I’ll go to the home games. I love it. I like to watch the band play at halftime.”
Bradley, who retired in 2015, looks forward to attending games with his friend next fall.
“I will enjoy standing next to him at those games,” he said. “Bob is a tremendous gentlemen. He and his family are special people.”
PHOTO: Longtime Pinckney announcer Bob Reason takes his familiar seat in the stadium’s press box. (Photo by Tim Robinson.)