Grass Lake Thriving But Driving for More
September 13, 2019
By Doug Donnelly
Special for Second Half
GRASS LAKE – Cameron Darrow remembers the play like it was yesterday.
“It was the third quarter and there was nine minutes left,” the Grass Lake middle linebacker said. “I had 14 tackles in the game already. I came up through the hole and it was raining, and I tackled the running back. As I was lifting him up, my foot got caught in the ground and twisted and popped.”
Darrow broke his ankle in two spots in that game against Addison, which was near the end of his sophomore season. It was a long road back, but the Warriors senior captain made a full recovery. He’s one of the reasons Grass Lake is off to a 2-0 start and has its sights set on a big season.
“We just take it game by game,” Darrow said. “We just want to keep winning. Our goal at the end of every week is to be 1-0.”
The reigning Cascades Conference champions earned a spot in The Associated Press’ Division 6 top 10 poll earlier this week. And going into tonight’s game against East Jackson, the Warriors are in midseason form. Grass Lake beat Stockbridge 58-12 in the season opener and handled Vandercook Lake 51-0 in the first game of league play.
“You can’t argue with how the kids have played,” said 20th-year Grass Lake head coach Randy Cole. “It’s very early in the season, though. We have a long way to go. We just have to keep getting better.”
Over the past six seasons, Cole has employed a high-powered, up-tempo offense. His son Anthony was an assistant coach at Albion College when Cole asked him his thoughts about implementing the offense at Grass Lake. It’s worked.
“It gives us a lot of versatility,” Cole said. “We spread the ball around. We get the ball out quick. It’s fun. The kids like it.”
Grass Lake is used to winning. The Warriors have made the playoffs 13 of the last 14 years and are 145-60, a winning percentage above .700, during Cole’s tenure.
This year’s offense is led by junior quarterback Carson Farley. He’s been dynamite through two weeks, completing 26 of his 30 passes for 440 yards and nine touchdowns. He hasn’t thrown an interception.
“He’s new,” Cole said. “He was our JV quarterback last year. He’s off to a great start. He makes good decisions. He has good knowledge of the offense. We run the same thing on the JV, and he ran it well last year. He knew coming in that he was going to be our quarterback, so he worked hard this summer.”
Farley has spread the ball around. Over just two games, six Warriors have at least one rushing attempt and eight receivers have caught passes. Six of those eight pass-catchers have a touchdown.
“We don’t really have a No. 1 receiver,” Cole said. “We spread it around. We take what the defense gives us.”
Trenton Holden leads the Warriors in rushing with more than 300 yards on nearly 12 yards per carry.
Grass Lake never huddles on offense.
“We don’t even use the word huddle,” Darrow said. “We call it a gathering. The only time we ‘gather’ is late in a game if we are trying to use up the clock.”
On defense, Darrow is the signal-caller from his middle linebacker spot. He’s been in on 24 tackles over two games – credited with 20 solo tackles and four assists. He has three tackles for loss and one sack.
“He’s the guts and glue of our defense,” said Cole.
Grass Lake’s No. 1 goal, as usual, is to win the Cascades Conference. After that, the Warriors are hoping to make a deeper run in the playoffs. Last season they started 8-0 before losing to eventual Division 8 champion Reading in the Week 9 Big 8 Conference crossover game 55-7 and then to Cascades foe Michigan Center 35-6 in the first round of the playoffs.
“We were humbled,” Darrow said. “We really wanted to be the third team in Grass Lake history to go 9-0 in the regular season, but we just fell short. We definitely have that in the back of our minds. We want revenge and want to make it further in the playoffs.”
During the winter and summer workouts, Darrow said, those two losses were motivation for the Warriors players.
“We had 30 to 40 kids there lifting all summer,” he said. “We talked about those losses. We want to be better this year.”
Darrow, who is one of three team captains along with Gage Lee and Shane Holcomb, said this year’s Warriors are a tight group.
“We play for each other,” he said. “We all have the same goals. We’ve been playing together since the third grade and we just love football. When I was coming back from my injury last year, everyone lifted me up and helped me get back. Not coming back wasn’t an option. I love football too much.
“Football is a brotherhood. We play for each other.”
Doug Donnelly has served as a sports and news reporter and city editor over 25 years, writing for the Daily Chief-Union in Upper Sandusky, Ohio from 1992-1995, the Monroe Evening News from 1995-2012 and the Adrian Daily Telegram since 2013. He's also written a book on high school basketball in Monroe County and compiles record books for various schools in southeast Michigan. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for Jackson, Washtenaw, Hillsdale, Lenawee and Monroe counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Cameron Darrow is back leading the Grass Lake defense this season. (Middle) Carson Farley looks downfield for a receiver (Photos courtesy of Amy Farley.)
Chelsea Wins Highest-Scoring Final with Record Comeback, Walk-Off Kick
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
November 27, 2021
DETROIT – Lucas Dunn just wanted to get the snap down.
After throwing an MHSAA Finals-record six touchdown passes Friday, the Chelsea quarterback would only have the ball in his hands momentarily on the final play of the game. But he knew if he handled his split-second duties, his friend Hunter Shaw would handle the rest.
“Just get it down,” Dunn said. “It was a shaky snap, but we practice special teams probably more than anybody in the state. We pride ourselves on it, and it’s come up big for us this postseason, and it showed there.
“(Shaw) is my dude, he’s one of my best friends, I love the dude. I have all the confidence in the world with him. He's a competitor, he’s confident, he’s composed, and he deserved that.”
Dunn handled the snap and Shaw drilled a 33-yard field goal to give the Bulldogs a 55-52 victory against Hudsonville Unity Christian in a dramatic Division 4 championship game at Ford Field.
“I just was like, ‘We’re state champs,’” Shaw said. “Obviously this team (Unity Christian) set the state record for most points (in a season), they’re a great team. Our defense showed up at the end, and we came back and won it. We’re state champs.”
The Bulldogs (14-0) trailed by three scores in the fourth quarter, but came all the way back to claim their first Finals title in a game that saw multiple MHSAA 11-player championship game records fall. Five of Dunn’s touchdown passes went to Lucas Hanifan, setting a record for receiving scores in a Finals game. The combined score snapped the record for combined points set by New Lothrop and Madison Heights Madison in 2018 (New Lothrop won that Division 7 Final, 50-44). Chelsea’s 55 points were one away from tying the record for a single team in a Finals game, and Unity Christian’s total ended up fifth all-time.
“It was ugly there, but you know what, we continue to fight every week,” Chelsea coach Josh Lucas said. “We never, ever quit, and that’s what tonight is about. It’s a high school game, you’ve got 16, 17, 18-year old kids, and no one wanted to win the game at the end – we turned it over, they turned over. Hats off to those guys, they’re a great team, but tonight the ‘Dogs are a little bit better, so we’re excited to be state champs. We’re going to have that trophy for one year, and that’s how we’re going to celebrate, for one whole year.”
Chelsea trailed 52-31 early in the fourth quarter, as Cameron Chandler scored his third rushing touchdown of the game for Unity Christian.
The Bulldogs responded with three touchdown passes from Dunn to Hanifan (21, 29 and 16 yards), with the last one coming with 4:43 to play after Braden Watson had recovered a fumble on the Unity Christian 19-yard line.
“It’s been a wild ride, just so many emotions,” Dunn said. “I lost my grandma a week and a half ago, right before the Country Day (Regional Final), and she was looking over me tonight.”
From there, the teams traded three turnovers, with Watson recovering another fumble with 2:23 to play, Drew Chandler getting the ball back with an interception with 1:11 to play, and Regan Plank giving the ball to Chelsea for good by recovering a fumble with 46 seconds on the clock at the Unity Christian 35.
Three plays later, Chelsea set the ball up in the middle of the field and let the clock run down to three seconds to give Shaw a chance to end it with one kick.
“Peashooter,” Lucas said. “He’s a straight dog. He’s done that all year. I think he’s got two misses all year, and those are on bad snaps or bad holds. He hadn’t missed one all year, so I knew if we got to the 20, 25, he had a chance to make it in. He’s a dog, man. That’s what dogs do, they step up when the big plays come.”
Unity Christian’s uptempo straight-T offense was unstoppable all season, and it remained that way through three quarters Friday. It finished with 803 points on the year, breaking the 11-player record of 774 set in 1999 by Muskegon Orchard View.
“(The championship) is why we came today, not for that stuff, but we came to get that trophy,” Unity Christian coach Craig Tibbe said. “It hurts right now. It’s hard to watch those seniors. When you spend that much time with a group of guys. Our prayers are for them that they’ll remember this in a good light at some time.”
While the end of the game was euphoric, Chelsea couldn’t have asked for a better start, as it made a 10-play, 80-yard opening drive look easy, and capped it off with a 33-yard touchdown pass from Lucas Dunn to Lucas Hanifan. On Unity Christian’s first play from scrimmage, Chelsea’s Jason Skoczylas forced a fumble that was recovered by Carson Gray, giving Chelsea the ball at the Unity Christian 25. The Bulldogs cashed in with a 5-yard touchdown pass from Dunn to Cole Munson to take a 14-0 lead.
From there, Unity Christian (13-1) took better care of the ball and did what it’s done all season.
Ethan VanOtterloo scored on a 19-yard run to put the Crusaders on the board, and Jayden DeVries hauled in a 25-yard scoring pass from Cameron Chandler two minutes later. Two-point runs from Chandler and Micah Bush had the Crusaders in front 16-14 before what began as a disastrous first quarter had ended.
Early in the second quarter, the Crusaders made history. Drew Chandler scored on a 39-yard run, and Cameron Chandler’s two-point run made it 24-14, pushing Unity Christian beyond the scoring record.
Of course, the Crusaders weren’t done, scoring touchdowns on either side of a 26-yard field goal from Shaw to take a 38-17 lead into halftime. Cameron Chandler scored on a two-yard run, which was set up by an interception he had returned to the Chelsea 9-yard line. After the field goal, he found Drew Chandler for a 27-yard touchdown pass, capping off a 75-yard drive that took just 1:15.
Unity Christian had the ball for just 5:31 in the first half, but averaged 12.2 yards per play.
The Crusaders started the second half much like they ended the first, as Cameron Chandler scored on a 29-yard run in the first minute of the third quarter. That made the score 45-17 – a 28-point deficit that set the Bulldogs up to set the Finals record for largest comeback.
Chelsea responded with a pair of scoring drives, one capped by a 3-yard run from Trenton Hill, and the other an 11-yard pass from Dunn to Hanifan.
Hanifan finished with 139 yards on nine catches, while Dunn had 308 yards on 25 of 36 passing. Hill led the Bulldogs’ rushing attack with 149 yards, and Robert Tyson led the defense with eight tackles.
Drew Chandler led Unity Christian with 182 yards rushing, while Cameron Chandler had 112. He also added 98 yards passing, 73 of which went to Drew Chandler. Ryan Shinabery recorded 16 tackles for the Unity Christian defense, while Mitch Tibbe had 12 and Bush had 10.
Friday’s Final was the third-straight win clinched by Chelsea during the closing minutes. The Bulldogs defeated Detroit Country Day on a blocked field goal returned for a touchdown during the final minute of their Regional Final, then stopped Freeland less than two yards short of the end zone late in last week’s Semifinal victory.
PHOTOS (Top) Chelsea's Gabriel Anstead (52) hoists teammate Lucas Dunn as the celebrate their team's Division 4 championship win Friday. (Middle) Hunter Shaw (18) connects on the game-winning field goal, with Dunn holding. (Below) Dunn unloads a throw; he would set the record for passing touchdowns in an MHSAA 11-Player Final. (Photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)