Hill's Return Aids Onsted Playoff Climb
November 22, 2019
By Doug Donnelly
Special for Second Half
ONSTED – Travis Hill only played in three games for the Onsted football team last season.
But it was those three games that helped pave the way for the senior to rush for more than 1,300 yards and help the Wildcats reach this weekend’s Division 6 Semifinals.
Hill broke his collarbone at practice the Wednesday before Onsted’s season opener in 2018.
“They told me I wouldn’t be back that season,” Hill said. “I recovered quick, I guess.”
Hill’s competitive drive put him on the fast track. He was back on the field for the final three games of the season. The Wildcats finished 3-6 on the year, but Hill’s return was important.
“It was pretty difficult (to come back),” Hill said. “But, those three games helped me be mentally prepared. … The first couple of plays, I was hesitant. But ever since then, I’ve felt good and confident in it.”
Last football season wasn’t the first time Hill had to miss time from the court or field. He broke the same collarbone during his sophomore basketball season. He was one of the key players on Brad Maska’s varsity hoops team when he went down with the injury.
“Travis is as competitive as any athlete I’ve ever coached, and I’ve coached a lot of really competitive guys,” said Maska. “He’s one of those rare athletes who could be all-state in baseball, all-state in basketball and all-state in football. He works hard and has a lot of drive.”
A healthy Hill has paid huge dividends for the Wildcats football team. Onsted started this season 2-0, slipped to 2-2 and hasn’t lost since. Two playoff wins avenged the Wildcats’ two regular-season losses – against Blissfield and Lenawee County Athletic Association champion Hillsdale.
“It’s been great and so much fun,” Hill said.
“We had a hot start, and then lost two games in a row. We could have either went up north and played really well, or we could have went south. We decided to get our stuff together and play well as a team. We’ve been playing pretty well since then.”
Hill has been a big reason why.
Through the Regional Final win over Hillsdale, Hill has 186 carries for 1,312 yards on the ground and another 23 receptions for 390 yards receiving. He has rushed for 14 touchdowns, caught four passes for touchdowns and returned a kick for a score.
On defense, he has 52 tackles, four interceptions and a forced fumble. He returned one of those interceptions for a touchdown.
He seldom takes a play off.
“He’s very talented but, more than that, it’s his competitive spirit,” Onsted coach Dan Terryberry said. “He just wants to win so bad. He’s explosive and doesn’t want to be denied.”
The Wildcats will face Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central in their Division 6 Semifinal at 1 p.m. Saturday at Ypsilanti Lincoln High School. For Onsted, this has been the deepest run in the playoffs since Hill’s uncles – including one of the most prolific passers in Lenawee County history John Hutchinson – led the Wildcats to the 1993 Class CC championship game.
Hill isn’t the only 1,000-yard back in the Wildcats’ backfield. Terryberry also leans heavily on Rourke Barth (1,025 yards). Junior quarterback Dylan Terryberry has more than 1,000 yards passing.
Coach Terryberry credits the Wildcats offensive line for much of the success.
“This is the first year that line has played all together, and a couple of them are playing new positions,” said Coach Terryberry. “They have grown a lot this season. They’ve bought in and are playing well.”
Dylan Stevens is one of those linemen. He’s a senior, like Hill, and is glad to have his classmate back for this season.
“It’s made a huge difference,” Stevens said. “Travis is an outstanding athlete on both sides of the ball. Not having him last year hurt us quite a bit.”
Terryberry, in his 16th season as Onsted’s head coach, is from Charlevoix. A former high school quarterback, he walked on at Michigan State. He started teaching and coaching at Tecumseh, where he served as offensive coordinator for the varsity football team and as the junior varsity head coach.
Having Hill play in those three games at the end of the 2018 season, Terryberry said, put any fears about the injury to rest.
“He’s pretty fearless and super competitive,” Terryberry said.
Hill has had numerous big games. He had 190 yards rushing against Dundee, and more than 175 against Blissfield in the first round of the playoffs. The Onsted faithful are hoping for at least one more big game Saturday against the Falcons (10-1), who were the No. 1-ranked team in the final regular-season Associated Press poll.
“It’s been a great experience so far, and we hope we aren’t done yet,” Hill said. “… I think it’s a mindset. We’ve played well. We knew we had the opportunity; if we put the work in, we could just keep going and keep going farther.”
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.
PHOTO: Onsted's Travis Hill (No. 5) rushed for more than 1,300 yards this season, a year after missing six games due to breaking his collarbone. (Photo courtesy of Onsted Athletics/T.J. Olsen.)
'Refuse to Lose' Divine Child Set Tone for Teams to Come with 1st Class B Title
By
Brad Emons
Special for MHSAA.com
November 15, 2024
There was no more conjecture, no newspaper or Associated Press polls to determine the state football champions.
The champion was no longer decided on paper, but out on the field as the MHSAA launched its first playoff tournament in 1975.
Only 16 total teams over four classes were invited to the dance.
And a school with an already a rich football heritage in Dearborn Divine Child proved it on the field with a 21-0 win over Saginaw MacArthur in the Class B title game before 4,000 fans at Central Michigan University’s Perry Shorts Stadium in Mount Pleasant.
In the Semifinals, MacArthur had outlasted Flint Ainsworth, 44-38, as senior halfback Mark Neiderquill rushed for 285 yards and four touchdowns, while Divine Child ousted Sturgis, 20-3.
In the frigid championship final on Nov. 22, the Falcons’ defense held MacArthur’s high-octane offense to seven first downs and 74 yards rushing. They caused three turnovers, with two fumble recoveries and an interception leading to all three of their TDs.
“I thought we could move the ball, but MacArthur was tough,” DC coach Bob LaPointe told the Detroit Free Press.
In the second quarter, Pat Doyle returned an interception 28 yards for a TD, and Mike Surmacz added the PAT for a 7-0 Divine Child advantage.
“That first interception really got us rolling,” LaPointe said. “Doyle can run the 40 in 4.9 and speed is what made that touchdown. But he got good blocking, too.”
Two minutes later, Mike Wiacek gave DC another scoring opportunity when he recovered a MacArthur fumble at the Generals’ 24. Nine plays later, senior quarterback Dan Faletti swept right end and scored on a three-yard bootleg for a 14-0 lead.
“The big thing is that they had a good running back that we had to make sure we kept under control,” said Faletti, who went on to play at Eastern Michigan University before a neck injury prematurely ended his career as a sophomore. “We pretty much got the lead, and Bob was conservative. I just remember scoring that touchdown, and my picture made the paper the next day.”
Neither team could move the ball in the third quarter. There were no first downs.
All-stater Mike Svihra then picked up a fumbled lateral in the fourth quarter and ran 10 yards for the game’s final TD.
“It was not a lot of offense; it was a bitter, cold day,” said Faletti, who went on to work for the Department of Defense for 20 years and Ford Motor Co. before recently retiring. “Bob LaPointe ran a conservative offense. We did ball-control, we didn’t put tons of points on the board ... we didn’t fumble the ball. We didn’t throw interceptions.”
The game, ironically, was played on AstroTurf, not on real grass.
“Everyone makes a bit deal of it, but there really isn’t that much difference,” LaPointe added afterwards. “The only thing I regretted about this game was that I could dress only 44 of my 56 players under the rules. It was tough (to) tell the other 12 they couldn’t suit up.”
An 18-12 loss to Madison Heights Bishop Foley during the final regular-season game, spoiling what would have been an undefeated season in 1974, had left the Falcons distraught – but even more galvanized as they made preparations for the 1975 campaign.
The Falcons also changed their offense in 1975, switching to a triple-option attack that LaPointe got from Notre Dame. The offense proved to be good enough for a 9-0 regular season and an MHSAA playoff berth.
“We were an underdog the whole thing, the whole time, we were the underdog in every big game we played in, but we didn’t allow people to beat us,” said Wes Wishart, who coached the linebackers and offensive line that season before taking over the head coaching reins for the Falcons from 1978-95. “We refused to lose, and that was the motto. From ’74 on those group of kids said, ‘We refuse to lose.’ You use that phrase as a coach all the time, but this group of kids lived it. They were the ones that invented it. When things got tight, ‘refuse, refuse, refuse.’ We’re not backing off from anybody. Great group of young men, great players.”
During the regular season, DC earned victories over highly-touted Flint Powers Catholic (20-14), previously unbeaten Southgate Aquinas (26-12) and Allen Park Cabrini (12-8).
That set up a Catholic League Prep Bowl showdown in the final game of the regular season against highly-touted 8-0 Birmingham Brother Rice, which was ranked No. 1 in the final regular-season AP Class A poll.
Although the Falcons were a decided underdog, the AA division champs upended Rice, 7-0, before a packed crowd at Eastern Michigan University’s Rynearson Stadium to snap the Warriors’ 22-game winning streak thanks to Jim Kempinski’s fumble return for a seven-yard touchdown as he snagged the ball in mid-air and never broke stride while crossing into the end zone.
“We played our butts off,” Faletti said. “It was a dog-eat-dog game.”
It was DC’s 11th Catholic League title, but more importantly put the Falcons into the first MHSAA Playoffs against Sturgis in a Semifinal match at C.W. Post Field in Battle Creek.
“I remember everything was brand new; nobody knew what they were doing,” said Wishart, who guided the Falcons to the 1985 Class A crown as their head coach. “Coach LaPointe on Monday had to get the school to get our hotel rooms in Battle Creek.”
Steve Toepper booted a 27-yard field goal for Sturgis to open the scoring, but DC responded with 20 unanswered points.
In the final quarter, DC’s Rick Rogowski scored on a seven-yard run with 9:23 left (after Steve Savini recovered a fumble caused by Joe Wiercioch) followed by a 10-yard TD run by Faletti with only six minutes to go (after Svihra recovered a fumble).
That sent the Falcons into the Final at CMU, where their defense suffocated MacArthur (9-2).
“We kind of ran a special outside zone. We had to quickly change (how) we would defend that. We shut them down,” said Wishart, who spent 50 years in CYO and high school coaching before retiring to live in New York. “There was no doubt, we were more physical than they were. We were blue collar kids. Typical Divine Child kids, hard-working, never give up.
“We believed desperately in defending Divine Child at all costs because we were a smaller school, so we had an attitude that still lingers there today that we all cultivated. We were going to be a physical squad.”
Meanwhile, what made the Falcons special and unique that title season was their “one for all and all for one” attitude.
“Everybody was the same,” Faletti said. “When we went between the lines, we were all equal. As captain, I got to be command as quarterback in the huddle. But off the field we were all equal. We played like 22 seniors. We were ready for this game.”
PHOTOS (Top) Dearborn Divine Child coaches and players receive the Class B championship trophy after winning the inaugural title game in 1975. (Middle) Falcons quarterback Dan Faletti throws a pass during the Final. (Below) Divine Child players and coaches raise their Prep Bowl trophy in celebration. (Championship game photos courtesy of Dearborn Divine Child yearbook. Prep Bowl photo provided by Dan Faletti.)