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Hudson, Morenci Fondly Recall Rivalry
January 31, 2020
By Doug Donnelly
Special for Second Half
MORENCI – It was a measuring stick for the season. It was Michigan vs. Ohio State, except inside state and county lines. It was tradition.
The Morenci-Hudson football rivalry was like a lot of other football rivalries across Michigan. Often pitting cousin against cousin and friend against friend, the rivalry was among the oldest in the state, with a continuous string of games dating back 99 years.
However, following a cascade of league changes in southeastern Michigan and recent one-sided history in the matchup, the rivalry has been discontinued – leaving behind nearly a century of memories for both communities.
Hudson has dominated the series of late, winning 17 of the last 20 games on the field, although one of those wins was later forfeited. Over 99 years, Hudson holds a 61-39-2 advantage in 102 all-time meetings. But to those who have coached in and played in the game between two southern Lenawee County teams nestled near the state line, the game has always meant more than wins and losses.
“That game? That game was everything,” said Marc Cisco, a 1954 Morenci graduate. “It was the kind of game that kids lived for back then. Both communities would come out for that game. Heck, it would be packed for the JV game. We played in snow and rain. It didn’t matter.”
Cisco had families on both sides of the rivalry. His father’s farm backed right up to the Hudson school district line. His younger brother ended up playing at Hudson.
Cisco is a member of the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame. He coached at Monroe Jefferson for 51 years, leading his team to the Class BB title in 1994. In high school he once led the state in scoring while playing for the Bulldogs. There was nothing quite like Hudson-Morenci, he said.
“It was the type of game that everyone talked about all summer,” Cisco said. “I knew a lot of players on Hudson’s team. We spent the summers up at Devil’s Lake, just like they did. It was really, really important to win that one.”
Hudson football historian Bill Mullaly has done the research on the rivalry. The two schools first met on the gridiron in 1921, meaning the 2020 game would have marked 100 continuous years of competition.
"It is sad to see this rivalry end,” Mullaly said. “I understand nothing lasts forever, but I always thought there would be a Hudson-Morenci game each fall.”
Both teams have enjoyed record-setting win streaks – and games against each other kept those streaks alive.
Morenci won 44 straight games from 1948 to 1953, setting the state record at the time. Hudson tied that record at Morenci in 1972, defeating the Bulldogs 42-0.
Hudson would go on to win 72 straight games, the national record at the time, under head coach Tom Saylor. One of the players for Saylor during that streak was Chris Luma, who played quarterback for the Tigers. Luma began coaching at Hudson soon after high school and was head coach of the Tigers varsity from 1997-2019, announcing his retirement this month. In 2009 and 2010, Luma coached the Tigers to shutout wins over Morenci – which was coached by Luma’s former coach, Saylor.
In 1982, Hudson opened the season with a 6-2 win over Morenci. The Bulldogs’ only score came when Hudson dropped back to punt and the snap went over the head of the punter and out of the back of the end zone for a safety. The Tigers didn’t give up a touchdown for the first 10 games that season but didn’t get the shutout against the Bulldogs.
“We didn’t allow them to score, we scored for them,” said Scott Marry, who played on that Tigers team that eventually lost in the Class C Semifinals. Marry, who has coached Hudson’s wrestling team to eight MHSAA Finals titles over the last 11 years, said it’s sad the game won’t be played going forward. “That game, every year, was so special. We’d open up with them every year, and you knew that if you won that game, you had a chance to go 9-0. That game was a measuring stick every year.
“I can still remember some of the collisions, the sound of the games against them.”
Jacob Bovee of Morenci played and coached in the rivalry. His wife is from Hudson.
“I remember my uncles and my grandpa talking about playing against Hudson,” Bovee said. “As a player, you liked to compete against them because you knew you were going to get their best shot. As a coach, you knew if you could play them tough you were going to be all right that season.
“We had some success against them, but records didn’t matter. You knew it was going to be a smash-mouth football game.”
Harley McCaskey was an all-state linebacker for Morenci before graduating in 2018. He played three games as a varsity player against the Tigers. The last two were excruciating two-point losses.
“My dad talked about the games he played against Hudson,” he said. “Everyone in school would talk about the Hudson game. When you started lifting weights for the season, you talked about beating Hudson.”
Hudson and Morenci were both members of the Lenawee County Athletic Association until Morenci left the LCAA to join the Tri-County Conference in 1981. Coincidentally, recent league shuffling played a major part in the move to discontinue the rivalry.
Whitmore Lake left the TCC before last season, causing a series of changes. Erie Mason left the LCAA to join the TCC. When that happened, Clinton left the TCC and joined the LCAA. Pittsford, left without an 11-player conference when Adrian Lenawee Christian and Athens decided to move to 8-player football for 2020, was added to the TCC as a football member starting this fall.
Pittsford and Morenci had been nonleague opponents for the last five years. With Pittsford joining the TCC, that left Morenci looking for a new nonleague opponent. The Bulldogs will open the 2020 season on the road at Three Oaks River Valley. Instead of keeping Hudson in the Week 2 slot – the teams have played each other that week for the last 15 years – Morenci instead will play Stockbridge.
Hudson, then, will play Erie Mason, now a nonleague opponent, in 2020.
Hudson has dominated the series in recent years, with several lopsided wins. The Tigers went 2-7 last season but beat Morenci 54-13 when the Bulldogs had fewer than 20 players on its roster. Morenci is 3-15 over the last two seasons, and the school district felt in order to rebuild the program, a new schedule would help.
But that doesn't mean the formerly annual meeting won't be missed. Marry said league or nonleague, home or away, Hudson vs. Morenci was a backyard rivalry that always seemed to be a little more important than some of the other games.
“If there was such a thing as a preseason playoff game, that was it,” he said. “It was a red-letter game for sure.”
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: Hudson’s Malik Ray (26) breaks into the open as Morenci’s Harley McCaskey (20) pursues during the 2017 matchup. (Photo by Mike Dickie.)
![Grand Rapids South Christian’s Jake Vermaas (2) tries to pull away from the grasp of Goodrich’s Owen Deciechi during Friday’s Division 4 Final.](/sites/default/files/2022-11/221125_D4_2H.jpg)
South Christian 2022 Finishes Best in Division 4, Best in Sailors' History
By
Scott DeCamp
Special for MHSAA.com
November 25, 2022
DETROIT – Grand Rapids South Christian’s football team wasn’t perfect Friday night at Ford Field, and it didn’t have to be. Now, the Sailors’ season as a whole – that was flawless.
Even when they faced adversity, they never panicked. They moved on and kept making plays, all the way to a Division 4 championship and 14-0 record.
South Christian shut out Goodrich, 28-0, in the MHSAA Final to become the first group of Sailors in program history to finish a season unbeaten.
“I mean, it’s crazy. We’ve had a lot of great teams at South and just to imagine that we’re the only ones to be undefeated is a great feeling,” said South Christian senior quarterback and defensive back Jake DeHaan, whose squad became the fourth in program history to capture a state title and the first since 2014.
South Christian’s first Finals championship came in 2002, when now-coach Danny Brown was a Sailors player. This is Brown’s first state title as a coach.
South Christian, which made its eighth Finals appearance Friday, also won it all in 2012.
“I think I was more nervous as a coach. I think as a player, at least in my experience, I never really got that nervous,” Brown said. “It was another way to hang out with your friends and play the game you loved. But as a coach, you start thinking about all the what-ifs and things that can happen. You want the kids to win so bad that you kind of take on that pressure.”
It wasn’t easy against Goodrich (12-2), which was making its first Finals appearance, as South Christian scored 14 points in the second quarter and 14 in the fourth.
DeHaan, a 6-foot-2, 190-pound playmaker, finished 14-of-21 passing for 266 yards with two touchdowns and one interception. He ran 12 times for a game-high 99 yards and one TD, plus he finished with four tackles and an interception. DeHaan’s signature moment was his 54-yard scoring run to give South Christian a 21-0 lead midway through the third quarter.
Junior Jake Vermaas, who fractured his collarbone in Week 3 and returned for the Sailors’ playoff opener, was the other “Jake” to make big plays. He made seven receptions for 152 yards and returned an interception 32 yards for a TD to put it away with 5:07 remaining in the game.
“It makes us that much better, right, to have all these playmakers. I mean, every guy can make a play and that’s what makes us so good,” Vermaas said. “We put in so much work to be that good and it shows, right? Fourteen-and-0.
“We’re the best – you can’t be better than that,” he added. “We were the best to do it at South Christian.”
Goodrich senior standout running back Jace Simerson finished with 91 yards on 20 carries. Martians senior quarterback Gavin Hart was 9-of-25 passing for 100 yards with two picks.
South Christian’s bevy of playmakers on offense and athletes with length on defense made it tough on opponents all season, and Friday was no different. Those strengths allowed the Sailors to overcome three turnovers.
“This is just one of those teams, and I know there’s a lot of them out there that no matter what the situation is, no matter what the moment is, there’s never a panic. They just continue to rise to the occasion,” Brown said.
“We felt that Week 6 with the (Grand Rapids) Catholic win, I think that kind of solidified – that was a back-and-forth game – that even when things get tight and there’s adversity, they can step up.”
That, the Sailors did.
In a scoreless game, DeHaan hit senior Nate Brinks on a 3-yard TD pass with 9:48 left in the first half. Four minutes later, he found sophomore Carson Vis on a 23-yard scoring strike.
Veteran Goodrich coach Tom Alward said he felt his team had opportunities to make plays, but the Martians just couldn’t capitalize. He attributed much of that to the Sailors.
“They’ve got athletes galore. They’ve got athletes at every position. I mean, it’s incredible,” Alward said. “You’re trying to match up. We thought we’ve got some athletes as well, but it’s tough to match up everybody.
“They do a good job. They sit there and they look, ‘Oh, that’s a linebacker.’ You run out of defensive backs against these guys. Plus, that quarterback, he’s a special young kid.”
DeHaan directed South Christian to this championship, helping the Sailors survive tests in the previous three rounds of the playoffs.
South Christian put away Hudsonville Unity Christian late, 35-20, in the District Final. In a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup in the Regional Final, the Sailors outlasted Whitehall, 28-21. In the icy Semifinal, South Christian held off Edwardsburg, 26-20.
“Our coaches stress (not to panic), which just helps us to keep persevering. And we knew that if we keep going and keep going that eventually our team’s going to come out on top and make plays when we need to make plays,” said DeHaan, who suffered a shoulder stinger late in the game but re-entered a play later.
It was a tough finish for Goodrich, which reeled off 12 straight wins to get to Ford Field after suffering a 27-2 season-opening loss to Frankenmuth, which is competing in the Division 5 Final on Saturday.
Alward said he loves every one of his teams, but this one will always have a special place in his heart.
“This team is exceptional – they’re exceptional,” the 30-year head coach said. “And not just football players, I’m talking about young men.”
PHOTOS (Top) Grand Rapids South Christian’s Jake Vermaas (2) tries to pull away from the grasp of Goodrich’s Owen Deciechi during Friday’s Division 4 Final. (Middle) Vermaas leaps over defender Gavin Valley (32). (Below) A Martians defender bats away a pass intended for the Sailors’ Carson Vis (13). (Click for more from Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)