Lenawee Christian Earns 1st Title Triumph
January 16, 2021
By Tim Robinson
Special for Second Half
BRIGHTON — Adrian Lenawee Christian coach Bill Wilharms liked his team’s chances going into the 8-Player Division 1 Playoffs.
When the championship game was switched from outdoors in Midland to indoors at the Legacy Center in Brighton, he liked them a whole lot more.
“We’ve got power, but speed is what we base ourselves on,” he said. “And the whole thought of basketball-on-grass when we’re on offense helps.”
The Cougars (11-0) took advantage, overwhelming Suttons Bay from the start in a 47-0 win in Saturday’s Division 1 Final.
Lenawee Christian put that speed to good use early, getting its first touchdown after a blocked punt by Jameson Chesser, and picking up its second with a 36-yard punt return for a touchdown by Ashur Bryja.
The Cougars never looked back, putting the game out of reach on the arm and legs of quarterback Landon Gallant, who threw two touchdown passes to Chesser, of 57 and 22 yards, and ran one in himself to give Lenawee Christian a 33-0 halftime lead.
Meanwhile, the Cougars’ defense was seemingly everywhere.
Suttons Bay had just 52 yards in total offense, and completed only 2 of 14 passes while getting sacked seven times.
“They closed on the ball very well,” Norsemen coach Garrett Opie said. “They’re fast, they’re athletic and they did a great job. We were trying certain mixtures in plays and feeling things out at the beginning of the game, and they did so well against many of our looks.”
The Cougars, meanwhile, piled up 400 yards in total offense, 289 of that through the air. Gallant completed 14 of 21 passes for 267 yards, while Bryja was 4-for-4 for 22 yards.
Chesser finished with four catches for 127 yards while also rushing for 52 yards. Elliott Addleman had four catches for 116 yards.
In fact, Suttons Bay’s biggest play came late in the game via its defense, when Michael Wittman picked up a fumble and returned it 37 yards before Bryja knocked him out of bounds, preventing a touchdown.
It was the first title for Lenawee Christian, which completed its first season of the 8-player format.
“it feels great,” said linebacker Brandon Scott, who led the Cougars with 10 tackles. “To do it with this team makes it a lot better. All the things we went through, all the pauses, who’d have thought we’d be finishing high school football in January? And indoors?”
“It’s tremendous for the Adrian community,” Wilharms said. “In Lenawee County, we’re pulling for Clinton next week to win it in (11-player) Division 6. We’re a brotherhood. It means a lot to us.”
Opie, an Adrian High School graduate who went to school with Wilharms' wife and sister-in-law, saw his team lose in the Division 1 Final for the second year in a row, but took the loss philosophically.
“They’re a phenomenal team,” he said of Lenawee Christian. “They had a lot of talent on their team and did a fantastic job. I’m very proud of our team for our 10-0 season. This is a very tough loss. We don’t want to go out this way, but it’s a privilege to be here, so we’ll take it with us and be very happy about it."
PHOTOS: (Top) Adrian Lenawee Christian’s Clay Ayers breaks through an opening during Saturday’s Division 1 Final. (Middle) The Cougars’ Elliott Addleman hauls in a pass. (Click for more from Hockey Weekly Action Photos.
King Eager to Begin Next Championship Pursuit Following Familiar Leader Patrick
By
Keith Dunlap
Special for MHSAA.com
August 22, 2024
DETROIT — To many around the state, it was a collective gasp and curiosity as to how the Detroit Martin Luther King football program would move forward.
To those within the King program itself, it was a collective shoulder shrug and “we’ll be fine.”
Days after a 26-20 loss to Mason in a Division 3 Semifinal last fall, King saw longtime head coach Tyrone Spencer leave to take the same job at East Kentwood.
It was no small loss, given Spencer had guided the Crusaders to one Division 2 and three Division 3 championships over eight seasons.
Not long after, longtime assistant Terel Patrick was named the new head coach for King. But even he was still processing what happened.
“A little bit of shock,” Patrick said of his initial reaction. “Every year, there were people trying to gauge whether he would or not leave. It wasn’t new that people were interested in him because he did that good of a job. But he always said no. With him saying yes, it kind of shocked me a little bit.”
But after the initial shock, it became business as usual for one of the top programs in the state.
Spencer certainly didn’t leave the cupboard bare in terms of the elite blue-chip talent the program usually enjoys, and there was about as much continuity in a coaching transition as one could hope.
All of King’s assistants stayed with the program, and Patrick said 14 are graduates of the school. Patrick has been on King’s staff since 2009 and called the continuity within the coaching staff a “unique situation.”
“Spence was always in charge of the defense, and I was always in charge of the offense,” Patrick said. “The biggest thing for me was that I had to relearn a different side of the football.”
To do that, Patrick spent the offseason at clinics and in phone conversations with defensive experts he knows. “Just to pick their brains and see what they think in certain situations,” he said.
Patrick shouldn’t be too concerned about picking up any new defensive acumen, given it helps to have supreme talent as always.
Senior defensive ends Xavier Newsom and Willie Fletcher, Jr., are highly-rated college prospects and considered among the best players in the state. Newsom said because the coaching staff remained mostly intact after Spencer left, there was no need to reassure the rest of the team and others that everything would be OK.
“We didn’t have to do that,” he said. “We still had Coach TP, so it’s not like we got a whole new coach. We told everybody that the program is still going to be the same. Nothing is going to fall off.”
King also should be loaded on offense, with sophomore quarterback Darryl Flemister coming off a terrific freshman year as the starter. He is already on the radar of prominent college programs.
Junior running back Michael Dukes rushed for 925 yards last year as a sophomore, while shifty senior slotback David Calmese is also back.
“The biggest thing is keeping the main goal the main goal,” Calmese said.
The coaching change certainly wasn’t enough to change the expectations of others within the Detroit Public School League. The Crusaders were picked to win the Blue division ahead of rival and fellow state power Detroit Cass Tech.
In addition to still being talented, King will be plenty motivated after not making it down the street to Ford Field last year thanks to the Semifinal loss to Mason.
“We’re not used to losing,” Newsom said. “Seeing us fall short, it definitely made us hungry.”
Keith Dunlap has served in Detroit-area sports media for more than two decades, including as a sportswriter at the Oakland Press from 2001-16 primarily covering high school sports but also college and professional teams. His bylines also have appeared in USA Today, the Washington Post, the Detroit Free Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Boston Globe. He served as the administrator for the Oakland Activities Association’s website from 2017-2020. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Detroit Martin Luther King’s Xavier Newsom awaits the next play during last season’s Detroit Public School League Blue championship game at Ford Field. (Middle) First-year Crusaders head coach Terel Patrick speaks during PSL media day Aug. 1. (Top photo by Olivia B. Photography; middle photo by Keith Dunlap.)