Griggs, Kelloggsville Set to Break Free Again
August 22, 2017
By Dean Holzwarth
Special for Second Half
WYOMING – If opposing teams think it’s going to be easy tackling Thomas Griggs this season, they might want to rethink their approach.
Griggs, a 5-foot-10, 210-pound running back for the Wyoming Kelloggsville football team, is difficult to stop and a load to bring down.
“He was referred to in the South Bend Tribune last year as a bowling ball with legs,” longtime Rockets head coach Don Galster said. “Those kids did not want to tackle him.”
Just a year ago, Griggs blossomed into one of the top running backs in the Grand Rapids area while leading Kelloggsville to a major turnaround.
The Rockets went 3-6 in 2015, but behind Grigg’s breakout season, finished 8-2 while winning the Ottawa-Kent Conference Silver title with an unbeaten league run.
Those eight were the most wins for a Kelloggsville team since 2009, when it went 10-1.
After a wild 50-47 loss to Whitehall in the opener, Kelloggsville reeled off eight straight wins and advanced to the playoffs. Its season, however, ended in Pre-District play against former conference rival Allendale.
“Last year was really good,” said Griggs, a three-year starter. “Everybody didn’t think we were capable of doing what we did, but our senior class last year put in the hard work. Being able to contribute to last year’s success made me feel even better.”
Griggs rushed for nearly 1,400 yards and tallied 20 touchdowns. He averaged 8.7 yards per carry while wreaking havoc on opposing defenses.
“My stats were good as a sophomore, but we didn’t win a lot of games,” Griggs said. “Coming into my junior year I knew I was going to do better because I worked hard over the summer.”
Griggs, a soft-spoken young man with aspirations to play college football, has a valuable skill set. He’s a punishing hard-nosed runner, but possesses other key attributes.
“What makes him special is he’s got great vision, great feet and he reads blocks very well,” Galster said. “He just doesn’t want to go down, and he has learned how to run the ball in our offense, which has been key.”
As evident by his yards per carry average, it typically takes more than one defender to pull Griggs to the ground. He takes pride in his ability to stay on his feet.
“I always want to break at least one tackle every play,” Griggs said. “I don’t want to let that first person tackle me, and I try to get as many yards as I can.”
Galster remembers his first encounter with his standout senior. It was an early glimpse into the future.
“He was in eighth grade and the principal brought him over to introduce me to him,” Galster recalled. “I thought, ‘This is a big kid,’ and he just has a ton of ability. He works hard, and he’s a quiet leader. Every year he’s gotten better, and he makes the other guys better.”
Griggs started playing football when he was 7. He actually started out as a center before moving to fullback.
It was a role he embraced.
“In my head, I think I can do anything. So when they put me at center, I had the mindset of I was going to be the best center,” Griggs said.
The Rockets are expected to compete for another conference crown with a bevy of talent back in the fold.
Griggs is one of three returning to the backfield, including dual-threat quarterback Alex Guzman. The Rockets graduated only two seniors on offense.
“There’s not a lot of jealousy with those guys, and it motivates them to work harder,” Galster said. “We have a lot of weapons, but these guys understand that it all starts with the offensive line. If they open holes for them, then we will have some success.”
Griggs said having multiple options on the ground will make it tough for other teams to game plan.
“It’s better for us as a team because other teams can’t come into the game saying they are only going to stop me and then they are going to win,” he said. “We have other players that are going to show up and do what they have to do.”
Kelloggsville’s senior class is a tight-knit group with the potential to duplicate last year’s run.
“As a group, we’re pretty good, and we have that hate-to-lose mentality,” said Griggs, who also averaged 19 points per game as a starting basketball point guard last winter. “I’m glad people have started to notice us, and now we just have to keep it going.”
Dean Holzwarth covered primarily high school sports for the Grand Rapids Press and MLive for 16 years and more recently served as sports editor of the Ionia Sentinel and as a sports photojournalist for WZZM and WOODTV. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Allegan, Kent and Ottawa counties.
PHOTOS: (Top) Wyoming Kelloggsville's Thomas Griggs runs away from the crowd against Wyoming Godwin Heights. (Middle) Griggs readies to receive a handoff against Belding. (Photos courtesy of the Wyoming Kelloggsville yearbook staff.)
'3rd-Quarter Team' West Catholic Shows Why in Record-Setting Triumph
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
November 25, 2022
DETROIT – When Negaunee senior Phil Nelson returned the opening kickoff of the second half Friday and tied the Division 6 championship game at 14, it woke something up inside Ford Field.
Unfortunately for Negaunee, that something was Timmy Kloska.
“I just saw that kick return, and it really fired me up,” the Grand Rapids West Catholic senior running back said. “Our o-line got going, the holes were opening and we just got going.”
Kloska dominated the rest of the game, rushing for 172 yards and four touchdowns during the second half, leading West Catholic to a 59-14 victory. It was the sixth Finals title for West Catholic, and first since 2017.
The Falcons’ 59 points set the record for an 11-player Final, breaking the mark set by both Flint Powers Catholic and Saginaw Nouvel in 2011.
“It’s great,” said Kloska, who finished with 241 yards rushing for the game. “Me and all my friends, and all the players on the team, we’ve worked really hard for this. This has been a dream since we were in seventh grade, watching all those state championships. It’s a great feeling because we’ve worked so hard.”
West Catholic put on an offensive display, gaining 520 yards of total offense and averaging 14.9 yards per play. That number sat at 16.8 yards per play entering the fourth quarter.
The Falcons had five touchdowns of longer than 30 yards, and three longer than 60. They were also remarkably balanced, as they gained 295 yards on the ground and 225 through the air on the arm of quarterback Bernie Varnesdeel.
“Our coaches, all week, have put us in good positions,” said junior receiver Carter Perry, who had touchdown receptions of 72 and 32 yards in the first half. “When you get put in that position, it’s almost easy to make the plays and execute them.”
It started right away, too, as Perry’s 72-yard score came on the first play from scrimmage.
“I knew right before the game he was going to be wide open,” Varnesdeel said. “We were working on that play all week at practice, and he’s been open most of the time. He was the main option right there, so I just hit him and executed.”
Despite the big-play success, West Catholic (13-1) wasn’t able to pull away from Negaunee because it barely had the ball during the first half.
Negaunee (13-1) had a 20:03-3:57 edge in time of possession, and ran 37 plays to West Catholic’s 13. But it took until the final play of the half for the Miners to get on the scoreboard. They scored on a 6-yard pass from Ty Jacobson to Nelson on 4th-and-goal to make it 14-7 at halftime. The scoring toss was set up by a 32-yard pass on a reverse flea flicker from Jacobson to Eli VanBuren on a third down near midfield.
“Our gameplan was really similar from the first half to the second half, but you have to give Negaunee a lot of credit,” West Catholic coach Landon Grove said. “They did a really good job. They slowed the game down. They ate up a lot of clock. That’s credit to them. They got us out of rhythm, and they kind of forced our hand a little bit by not letting us have the football.”
When Nelson ran the kick back to start the second half and tie the game at 14, it seemed as if Negaunee’s strategy was working perfectly.
But West Catholic’s 45 unanswered points to end the game negated all of that.
“We ran out of gas,” Negaunee coach Paul Jacobson said. “We played toe-to-toe with them for a half, Phil had a great return to start the second half. I don’t know if we woke a sleeping giant. It was a combination of that, and we kind of ran out of gas. Then they rolled that second half on us.”
The Falcons scored 31 points in the third quarter, and didn’t take up a lot of time in doing so.
Kloska had touchdown runs of 61, 16 and 3 yards, and Varnesdeel threw his third touchdown pass of the game, a 68-yarder to Andrew McAlary. Carson Beekman added a 31-yard field goal.
Those five drives lasted a total of 4:35.
The difference between the third quarter and the first half, however, was that the West Catholic defense was getting the Negaunee offense off the field.
“Kind of our M.O. this year has been third quarters,” Grove said. “Kind of coming out with our hair on fire and taking over games. That’s what we did again today. That’s a testament to our defensive staff for making those adjustments they needed to make. Then our kids buying into those adjustments and believing in the process.”
Kloska added a 13-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter, while Elliot Zainea had a 26-yard touchdown run for the Falcons.
Varnesdeel was 5-of-10 passing on the night for his 225 yards and three scores. McAlary had three catches for 121 yards, and Perry had his two for 104.
Charlie DeBruyn led the West Catholic defense with 10 tackles, including 3.5 for loss, and forced a fumble.
Kai Lacar led Negaunee with 45 yards rushing, and Ty Jacobson was 7-of-12 passing for 78 yards.
“I’m just proud of these guys, the way they battled adversity,” Paul Jacobson said. “They battled a ton of different stuff this year. Just the ups and downs, they were able to stick together. We really preach a family mentality, and they stuck together through and through. I’m proud of these guys.”
PHOTOS (Top) West Catholic’s Carter Perry (13) gets upfield during his team’s Division 6 championship win. (Middle) The Falcons’ Danny Groskiewicz (24) and Joe Debski bring down a Negaunee ball carrier. (Below) West Catholic players celebrate Friday’s win. (Click for more from Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)