Harbor Beach is Title Town
November 23, 2012
By Geoff Kimmerly
Second Half editor
DETROIT – Harbor Beach always has considered itself a football town. Beginning with its last run to an MHSAA championship game in 1991, the Pirates have amassed six seasons with at least 10 wins – including four over the last decade.
But the 1,600 residents living along that stretch of Lake Huron shoreline now can call it the home of a champion as well.
Harbor Beach claimed its first MHSAA football title Friday, beating two-time champion Beal City 35-10.
Only two years ago, the Pirates were coming off their third straight losing season. But they bounced back with a District title in 2011, and also set a school record for wins this fall finishing 13-1 – guaranteeing this group will be remembered with special regard among the many who have made marks on the program.
“We’re state champions,” Pirates senior Aaron Ginther said. “That’s all I have to say,” leaving junior quarterback Eli Kraft to elaborate.
“I couldn’t be prouder of our team. We lost Sloan earlier in the year, and everybody gave up on us. But what matters is we stuck together and we believe in ourselves, and we believed that if we worked hard every day in practice we could get it.”
“Sloan” is senior running back/linebacker Sloan Klaski. He's 6-foot-2 and 195 pounds and ran for 1,041 yards and 19 touchdowns last season, but was knocked out for this one by an injury on opening night.
That could have knocked the feet out from under Harbor Beach’s title march before it got started. Instead, the Pirates began a stand that carried through the season’s final day.
Harbor Beach’s defense began Friday by showing off that resolve. Beal City took the ball away on an interception barely more than a minute into the game, but gave the ball back on downs when senior nose guard Josh Keyes led a fourth-down pile-up that stopped the Aggies inches from the goalline.
The Pirates held their ground again when Beal City appeared to be gaining steam. Down 28-10 with 1:53 to play in the third quarter, the Aggies were driving to make the game close again and pushed to Harbor Beach’s 2-yard line. But Keyes and junior linebacker DeAndre Ridner stopped an inside run for no gain, and senior defensive end Brandon Oswald chased down the runner on a fourth-down pitch that also failed to reach the end zone.
Five minutes later, junior Colin Cook snagged an interception that effectively ended the game.
Beal City had scored 40 or more points in eight games this fall and never fewer than 25. The Aggies also averaged 372 total yards per game entering the day but gained only 291 in the Final. They became the 10th team to score 10 or fewer points against Harbor Beach – although Schelke said after that his team played above its usual high level to shut down the Aggies.
“The momentum changed when we didn’t get that score at the beginning. It really stoked them up and set us back a little bit,” Beal City coach Lou Rau said.
“We might’ve made three stands. One time we held them to a field goal too, and that felt like a little bit of a victory,” Schelke added.
And his offense did plenty to give the Pirates a cushion.
Kraft, an all-state honorable mention, completed 8 of 13 passes for 168 yards and two scores and ran for 70 yards and another touchdown. His scoring passes set the tone early – the first 54 yards to Ginther and the second 69 yards to junior Travis Essenmacher, both before the end of the first quarter.
Ginther also had 12 tackles at linebacker, and Keyes had 10. Senior defensive end Kyle Kramer had two sacks for the Pirates.
Junior running back Ty Rollin ran for 76 yards and Beal City’s lone touchdown. Junior linebacker Hayden Huber had 13 tackles and sophomore linebacker Alex Schafer had 10. Kicker Paul Anders, a foreign exchange student from Germany playing football for the first time this season, drilled a 30-yard field goal – the first in a Division 8 Final since Climax-Scott’s J Rustenholtz hit a 26-yarder in his team’s 42-8 win over Crystal Falls Forest Park in 2004.
Beal City fell to Forest Park that season in a Semifinal. But the Aggies are used to making this trip – Friday’s was their sixth championship game appearance, with their last title coming in 2009. The Aggies finished 13-1. “Thirteen wins in a season is pretty admirable, and you can’t ask for a better group of guys,” Rau said.
Harbor Beach's community came out in en masse for a Thanksgiving send-off parade that sent chills through Schelke and his players alike. They then followed the Pirates to Ford Field on Friday.
“We are a football town. We have a great tradition at Harbor Beach starting with coach John Jack Dillon that led the team here in '91, and it’s just carried on,” Schelke said. “We’re on a great streak right now with great seniors leading, and we think we have some great players coming from behind. There’s a lot of alumni here that played on great Harbor Beach teams.”
“Our fans are fantastic, and they support us, and they had a blast today.”
Click for full statistics and to watch a replay of the game. See below for the full press conference.
PHOTOS: (Top) Harbor Beach senior Derek Pfaff (7) holds up the Division 8 championship trophy to the crowd with teammates Brandon Pfaff (4) and Justin Lasceski. (Middle) Pirates senior Aaron Ginther (47) pulls in a catch with Beal City's Sam Schafer giving chase. (Click for more from Terry McNamara Photography.)
Rose's Legend Grows in Shores Repeat
January 22, 2021
By Jason Schmitt
Special for Second Half
DETROIT – Game planning for an all-state football player like Brady Rose certainly isn’t easy.
In fact, it’s downright awful just to think about.
The Muskegon Mona Shores senior quarterback once again proved that point to be true Friday afternoon, leading his team to a 25-19 victory over Warren De La Salle Collegiate and a second consecutive MHSAA Division 2 championship at Ford Field in Detroit.
Rose rushed 22 times for 154 yards and a pair of touchdowns. But it was a 65-yard scamper early in the fourth quarter that proved to be the play of the game – a game filled with key plays by Rose.
“We ran that play quite a bit (today), but I wasn’t being patient, I wasn’t bouncing it to the outside,” Rose said. “(This time) I just let it develop, let it do what it was supposed to do and I bounced it outside and took it down into the red zone.”
The play lifted the spirits of the entire team and provided a much-needed boost of confidence.
“We get the ball down there, everybody is excited again. Everybody is hyped,” he added. “After that run, we knew we were going to punch it in. Anytime we get into the red zone, we have to punch it in, and we did.”
Three plays later, senior wideout Keondre Pierce scored on a 10-yard pitch to the right side, giving Mona Shores a 19-7 lead with 9:25 left in the game.
De La Salle, which trailed 13-0 at halftime, didn’t give up. The Pilots answered right back on a 52-yard touchdown run by senior JC Ford with 7:58 to play. The drive took just 1:21 off the clock and also included a 23-yard pass from Ford to senior running back Brett Stanley to help set up the touchdown run.
After a quick three-and-out, the Sailors then relied on their defense to get the ball back. Coach Matt Koziak’s team came up with a clutch stop on fourth down, on De La Salle’s half of the field. Seven plays later, Rose scored his second touchdown of the game, this time from four yards out to give his team a 25-13 lead with just 1:47 left to play.
De La Salle did move the ball down the field quickly, scoring on a four-yard keeper by sophomore quarterback Brady Drogosh with 16 seconds to play. But it wasn’t enough, as Rose recovered the ensuing on-side kickoff attempt and then took a knee to end the game.
“They did have us on our heels a little bit,” Koziak said. “We jumped up on them, 13-0 going into halftime, then they come right back in the second half. We said it at halftime, ‘They’re not going to go away. They’re not going to let you win this, you’ve got to go take it.’”
The Mona Shores defense, led by senior Kyree Hamel, who finished with 11 tackles and an interception, held De La Salle to just 50 total yards and three first downs in the first half. The Pilots totaled 62 yards on the ground during their drive to start the second half. Ford provided a change of pace for De La Salle, running the ball six straight times to begin the drive. After runs of 15 and 10 yards by freshman Rhett Roeser moved the ball inside the 5-yard line, Ford capped the drive with a four-yard touchdown run to get his team on the scoreboard.
“We didn’t run a lot of plays in the first half, and we couldn’t get into a rhythm,” De La Salle head coach Dan Rohn said. “So we went into halftime and said, ‘Let’s change things up a little bit and up the tempo.’ It’s kind of been JC’s role all year long. We haven’t needed it in the playoffs because he’s playing two ways.”
Ford finished with 111 yards on 15 carries and those two touchdowns. Stanley had 42 yards and Roeser added 38 for the Pilots. Defensively, junior Will Beesley had a game-high 20 tackles, while senior Jayden Conklin added 14. Junior Dionte Dandridge had an interception.
Mona Shores (12-0) finished with 311 rushing yards. Along with Rose, junior Elijah Johnson also had a good game on the ground. He carried the ball 14 times for 81 yards and had a nine-yard touchdown in the first half. Rose also returned three kicks for 48 yards, averaged 39 yards on his three punts, blocked an extra point and had eight tackles on the other side of the ball.
“What a legacy for him to leave,” Koziak said of Rose, who will play collegiately at Ferris State University. “Obviously he’s a tremendous player, a tremendous competitor. It’s so easy to root for a dude like that. He’s not 6-foot-3, he doesn’t run a 4.3 40 (yard dash). He’s not a 5 star. But all great stories usually have an underdog in it, so it’s easy for people to get behind him, for his teammates to get behind him. They love him. I think when we look back on one of the great players, and performances, in the state over the past two seasons, he’s got to be in the conversation.”
Rohn, who completed his first year at De La Salle after having won four Division 5 championships at Grand Rapids West Catholic, said he was proud of his team for battling through a lot of adversity over the past year.
“We went against one of the best football teams in the state of Michigan and one of the best football players in the state of Michigan,” Rohn said. “Hats off to Matt (Koziak) and his team. I have nothing but respect for their program and the way they played today. Who would have thought that we’d be sitting here on January 22 with an opportunity to win a state championship?”
Koziak praised Rohn for all his accomplishments at De La Salle, while also crediting players from all over the state for forging ahead despite all the obstacles they faced over the past year.
“I’m proud of our young men. I’m proud of the state of Michigan, the football players,” Koziak said. “These young men have been through the ropes. They’ve been on an emotional rollercoaster. Football prepares you for life. But this season, holy cow, it’s going to teach you disappointment, it’s going to teach you hope, it’s going to teach you surprise, it’s going to teach you humility. I have no doubt these young men are going to be good fathers, and better sons, better husbands because things didn’t go their way this year. Whether it was wins or losses, or COVID, or a pause in the season, whatever it was. They’re all going to be better human beings for it, and I think that’s a special message we tried to preach all year.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Muskegon Mona Shores quarterback Brady Rose drops back to pass during Friday’s Division 2 championship game at Ford Field. (Middle) De La Salle’s Will Beesley makes his move as Shores defenders close in. (Click for more from Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)