Martin Caps Frantic Final Minutes with Unforgettable Comeback at Superior Dome
By
Jason Juno
Special for MHSAA.com
November 18, 2023
MARQUETTE --- Martin had it easy last year, at least from a stress and anxiety standpoint.
Sure, the 8-Player Division 1 Final was competitive in the first half, but Martin went on to win the championship game by 50 points, hardly anything to sweat too much about.
But this year?
Oh goodness.
Martin took possession of the ball on its own 15-yard-line with 1:15 on the clock and trailing by two scores, 26-14, to an Indian River Inland Lakes team determined to win its first Finals title on the football field.
And Martin won. A state title game for the ages, the Clippers claimed it 30-26 to repeat as champions despite also trailing 20-0 to start the fourth quarter.
It was still a 20-point margin, 26-6, when the Bulldogs scored what seemed to be the insurance points they needed with 6:26 left.
“It’s amazing,” Martin coach Brad Blauvelt said. “I’m not gonna lie – doubt creeps into your head when it’s 20-6, they’re driving down the field, they’re running the clock. … We made plays, we made plays when it counted the most.”
Inland Lakes built its big lead with a stout red zone defense – Martin got there on every one of its possessions but didn’t cash in until the final quarter – and a four-touchdown day from junior quarterback Aidan Fenstermaker.
It was the first Finals appearance for Inland Lakes, which had its two winningest seasons over the last three years. Coach Travis Meyer’s message to the team after such a heartbreaking loss was about focusing on getting here – no easy feat itself – and about the upperclassmen guiding the rest of the team so that their run of success isn’t complete.
“No one in the state, based on any rankings, based on any newspaper articles, based on anything really, expected us to do what we did,” Meyer said. “And then even the ones that weren’t totally shocked that we were here didn’t think it was going to be a four-point game. Regardless of when the points were scored, that’s still a four-point game, that’s a hell of a state championship. That could have gone lots of different ways, and I don’t think anybody really expected us to give them a shot.”
They certainly did that. Martin, though, had an epic response.
The Clippers scored quickly, going 70 yards in a minute and a half, with Haylen Buell’s one-yard touchdown run pulling the Clippers within 26-14 with 4:54 left.
The Bulldogs recovered the Martin onside kick attempt and marched right into the red zone on the ensuing drive. But they turned it over on downs with 1:33 left.
That meant Martin had to go 85 yards just to pull within one possession with the clock even more daunting than the distance.
It took them a minute. The Clippers capped the drive as Taegan Harris caught a 10-yard scoring pass from Gavin Meyers with 33 seconds to go. The conversion pass made it 26-22.
Everything came down to the onside kick by sophomore Ben Romero. The bouncing ball went off at least two Inland Lakes players before Martin’s Mike Branch recovered it.
Martin had tried an onside kick after its previous two scores as well, but this was the only one that worked.
“They timed it perfect,” Meyer said. “That kid has a heck of an onside kick, it gets there at the same time as his kids. Whether you’re ready for it, whether you’ve got your best athletes there or not, that’s hard to do, especially on a stage like this, in that moment. That is hard on anybody, even the pros.”
The Clippers took over at their 45 with 32 ticks on the clock. Before long they were at the 21.
Meyers looked to pass, scrambled and then ran 21 yards for the touchdown with five seconds remaining.
“It was a pass play, trying to get it to Abe (Dykstra),” Meyers said. “The middle opened up, and I just took off.”
He said he was just hoping to get out of bounds, with the clock running down, but he was able to get in the end zone.
“We thought we could keep them out for two more plays,” Meyer, the Bulldogs’ coach, said. “We lost contain somewhere there around the edge.”
The unfathomable score: 30-26 after the conversion.
Martin lost a lot of seniors from last year, including three all-staters. The Clippers didn’t win their conference, and they fell to 2-2 early in the year with losses to Bridgman and Gobles. They haven’t lost since, though, winning nine straight games with a young team.
“It’s nice to be able to leave a legacy,” said Harris, a senior. “Last year, we had a pretty stacked group of guys. We had three of our star players injured this season, it wasn’t looking good, 2-2, then we won, what, nine, eight straight? … It feels really good.”
Meyers, who threw for 216 yards and ran for 142 on Saturday, filled in for one of those all-state graduates quite well, J.R. Hildebrand.
“He’s a damn good football player,” Blauvelt said of Meyers. “And he’s grown a bunch. Halfway through the year, he started moving in the pocket, keeping his eyes downfield. You saw it today, right, he kept his eyes downfield.”
After a scoreless first quarter, Inland Lakes scored twice during the second quarter. The Bulldogs took over for the final drive of the half at their own 12 with 3:05 remaining. They went for it on 4th-and-6 at their own 31 and again on 4th-and-6 at the 47. They converted both and were rewarded with a touchdown as time expired. Despite being pressured, Fenstermaker hit Jacob Willey in the corner of the end zone for a 24-yard touchdown pass that put Inland Lakes up 14-0 at the half.
Meyer said his team punted once this year and once last year.
“We don’t put a ton of time into punting,” he said. “So when the best we can do is maybe get off a 25-yard punt and they return it 10 yards before we cover it, we figured that was only 15 yards of field position anyway, so we might as well give ourselves a shot. It was playing the odds. Maybe people don’t like that logic, but we like to play aggressively. We like to see what we can do.”
They built the lead to 20-0 late in the third quarter as Martin came up empty on all four of its drives, even though every one of them got into the red zone.
“It was very frustrating,” Blauvelt said. “We saw on film, they stopped Pickford (in the Semifinal) inside the red zone multiple times, they tightened up when they got in there. We shot ourselves in the foot in the first half. But we moved the ball consistently, but yeah, that was a little frustrating. We had some good drives, and we just couldn’t punch them in.”
It just wasn’t as frustrating as the finish was for the Bulldogs.
Inland Lakes senior Payton Teuthorn said getting to this point was what they wanted since youth football.
“We made it here. We just couldn’t finish,” he said.
PHOTOS (Top) Martin players celebrate with their fans Saturday the program’s second-straight 8-Player Division 1 championship at Superior Dome. (Middle) Martin quarterback Gavin Meyers charges toward the end zone on the way to scoring the game-winning touchdown. (Below) Inland Lakes’ Andre Bradford (20) pulls in a catch as two Martin defenders converge including Bryer Watson (2). (Click for more photos by Cara Kamps.)
1st & Goal: 2022 Football Finals Review
By
Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor
November 29, 2022
There were the highest-scoring Finals performances on record, and one of the closest finishes of all-time.
Greats who will immediately go down in history played their final high school games. Others continued to write their championship stories.
Four teams made repeat trips to their season’s final days. But most who earned the opportunity during these MHSAA Playoffs stepped on championship turf for the first time, and 45,000 fans watched them do it.
Another Michigan high school football season came to a close over the last two weekends, with 8-Player Finals on Nov. 19 and 11-Player Finals this past Friday and Saturday.
MHSAA.com covered all 10 championship games, with quick recaps and links (click on the game scores) to those stories below followed by notations of performances entered into the MHSAA Finals record book and a report on some of the main storylines to emerge as those championships were being decided.
Finals in Review
11-Player Division 1: Belleville 35, Caledonia 17 - Read
Belleville sophomore quarterback Bryce Underwood was awe-inspiring again in leading the Tigers to their second-straight championship to close a 14-0 season. He threw for 155 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 149 yards and a score. Caledonia led as late as the final minute of the third quarter before Belleville scored the game’s final 21 points.
11-Player Division 2: Warren De La Salle Collegiate 52, Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central 13 – Read
De La Salle repeated as Division 2 champion again following the lead of quarterback Brady Drogosh, who completed an astonishing 21 of 23 passes for 249 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 152 yards and three scores. Forest Hills Central was playing its first championship game since 1994, with this its only defeat of the season.
11-Player Division 3: Detroit Martin Luther King 56, Muskegon 27 – Read
The Crusaders made their third championship game appearance with Dante Moore as starting quarterback and repeated as Division 3 champion as he threw for 275 yards and four touchdowns, completing 21 of 26 passes. Jameel Croft Jr. returned the opening kickoff 96 yards, and King never trailed on the way to its sixth championship. Muskegon moved up the Finals appearances list and now sits tied for sixth all-time with 13.
11-Player Division 4: Grand Rapids South Christian 28, Goodrich 0 – Read
South Christian completed its first perfect season with its first Finals championship since 2014. The Sailors took a 14-0 lead during the second quarter and doubled it up in the fourth, as quarterback Jacob DeHaan was among the weekend’s stars with 266 yards and a touchdown passing and 99 yards and a touchdown rushing. Goodrich was making its first Finals appearance.
11-Player Division 5: Gladwin 10, Frankenmuth 7 – Read
Gladwin’s Treyton Siegert drilled a 21-yard field goal during the final seconds to clinch the Flying Gs’ first Finals championship and a 14-0 season. Frankenmuth also had entered undefeated and seeking its first Finals title. As anticipated, defense dominated as the teams combined for just 424 total yards and 15 first downs, plus 11 punts.
11-Player Division 6: Grand Rapids West Catholic 59, Negaunee 14 – Read
This was another close game at halftime – Negaunee made it 14-14 on the first kickoff return of the second half, before West Catholic scored 45 unanswered points. Running back Timmy Kloska became one of the stars of the weekend as well with 241 yards and four touchdowns rushing as his team handed the Miners their only defeat of the season.
11-Player Division 7: Jackson Lumen Christi 15, Traverse City St. Francis 12 – Read
The Titans avenged a 42-35 Week 2 loss to the Gladiators to finish off their rebound from an 0-3 start this season, earning the program’s 12th Finals championship. St. Francis took a 12-0 lead into halftime, but Lumen Christi scored the only touchdowns of the second half including the eventual game winner with 7:05 to play.
11-Player Division 8: Ottawa Lake Whiteford 26, Ubly 20 – Read
These two opened the 11-player championship weekend with a close finish, as Whiteford won the matchup of undefeated contenders with quarterback Shea Ruddy scoring the game winner with just under two minutes to play. The Bobcats opened with two first-quarter scores and led 20-6 early in the third before Ubly made its comeback.
8-Player Division 1: Martin 74, Merrill 24 – Read
Martin claimed its first Finals championship since 1987 led by quarterback JR Hildebrand, who ran for 191 yards and four touchdowns including the game’s first two scores – and whose dad Tracey played on that 1987 team. The Clippers scored the first 20 points and never led by less than 12 the rest of the way. The loss was Merrill’s only one this fall.
8-Player Division 2: Powers North Central 66, Mendon 26 – Read
The Jets extended their 8-player record winning streak to 37 games with three championships while enjoying the final game of quarterback Luke Gorzinski’s career. He’s guided all three of those championship teams and this time threw for 207 yards and four touchdowns, and ran for another score, despite playing through a knee injury.
Records Report
A number of longtime powers returned to Ford Field, as seven of the 16 finalists in 11-player made at least their eighth appearance in a championship game. Jackson Lumen Christi moved up to a tie for third on that list with its 15th appearance, and as noted above Muskegon moved into a tie for sixth with its 13th title game berth. In 8-player, Powers North Central became the first to play in at least five Finals – and win at least five championships. Lumen Christi is now tied for second on the 11-player championship list with 12 titles, one back of record holder Farmington Hills Harrison.
Both the 8 and 11-Player Finals saw team scoring records. In 8-player, Martin set a record with 74 points, while its 43 in the first half ranked second for one half and its 98 combined points with Merrill ranked third for highest-scoring 8-player championship game. North Central’s 66 points were the fourth-most for one team in an 8-Player Final, with its 28 in the first quarter fourth on the single-quarter list, its 41 in the first half third for one half, and its combined 92 points with Mendon also ranking fourth for highest-scoring game. In 11-player, Grand Rapids West Catholic set the Finals record for one team with 59 points, with its 31 third-quarter points ranking third on that list and its 45 second-half points ranking second. King’s 56 total points are tied for second-most in an 11-Player Final, and De La Salle’s 52 points also made that list.
Going along with those 56 points, King’s 529 yards of total offense ranked sixth, and its 24 first downs were tied for 11th-most in an 11-Player Final. De La Salle’s 25 first downs tied for seventh on that list. Martin rushed for an 8-player championship game record eight touchdowns, while its 374 rushing yards was third on that list. Merrill’s 328 passing yards ranked third for an 8-player title game, while North Central’s five TD passes tied for third and its 23 first downs tied for second most.
A pair of eventual winners got started quickly. Jameel Croft Jr. tied the 11-player record for quickest first touchdown on a kickoff return, scoring 15 seconds into the Division 3 Final on a 96-yarder for King. Bernie Varnesdeel found Carter Perry 16 seconds into the Division 6 game on a 72-yard scoring pass to give Grand Rapids West Catholic an early lead – that was the second-fastest passing TD to start a game.
Kickers did their parts during the high-scoring weekends. King’s Terrence Moore and West Catholic’s Carson Beekman tied for the record for most extra points, both making all eight of their tries. De La Salle’s Landon Ryska sits tied for third after making all seven of his attempts. Belleville’s Brayden Lane also made the list with five extra points in five tries. In 8-player, Adrian Mercier earned the second spot on that list with six extra points for North Central.
Quarterbacks again made big statements, especially a pair of stars in their final high school games. King’s Dante Moore made Finals lists with 275 passing yards, four passing touchdowns and 304 total yards, plus his 21 completions tied for seventh-most and his .808 completion percentage ranked sixth for 11-player title games. De La Salle’s Brady Drogosh also completed 21 passes, and his .913 completion percentage is second on that last. His 401 total yards ranked seventh, and he also made the passing yards list with 249. South Christian’s Jacob DeHaan made the passing yards list with 266 and total yards list with 365, and Belleville’s Bryce Underwood also made the total yards list with 304.
In 8-player, Martin quarterback JR Hildebrand scored 28 points, tied for fourth most, with his four touchdowns tied for third on the overall and rushing TD lists. Merrill quarterback Joe Tack’s 328 passing yards rank third, and his 347 total yards are eighth.
West Catholic running back Timmy Kloska earned statewide interest as his 241 rushing yards made that record list. He also tied for eighth in 11-player scoring with 24 points, tied for fifth with four touchdowns, tied the record for most rushing touchdowns in a quarter with three, and with his four rushing TDs for the game tied for third on that list.
King’s Sterling Anderson Jr. also made the 11-player single-game rushing yards list with 207, and Mendon’s Jack McCaw made the list in 8-player with 211. Merrill’s Kaleb Walker made the 8-player receiving yards list with 213, which ranks second, and Martin’s Gavin Meyers became the first 8-player entry for interceptions in a championship game after snagging three.
Special teams had its share of highlights, with four returns making Finals record book lists. Negaunee’s Phil Nelson brought a kickoff return back 98 yards, ranking third on that list, and Croft’s return noted above is tied for fifth-longest in 11-player. North Central’s Elijah Gorzinski ran back the longest kickoff return in 8-player, 85 yards, for also the fastest score off an opening kickoff in 11 seconds. Martin’s Taegan Harris earned the first 8-player punt return entry with his 94-yarder.
West Catholic and De La Salle became the 30th and 31st teams to not punt in an 11-Player Final.
Last, but certainly not least: The Whiteford vs. Ubly Division 8 Final became the first 11-player championship game to see zero penalties, and of course zero penalty yards. Previously, five games had seen 10 or fewer penalty yards by both participants combined.
Stories Behind the Scores
Up to the Challenge: For the first time, coaches at 11-player championship games were allowed to challenge officials’ calls on a series of pre-determined situations including if a pass was complete or incomplete, if a runner or receiver was in or out of bounds, etc. Two challenges were made over the eight games at Ford Field – including one challenge that didn’t need to be made as it came on a scoring play, and all scoring plays are automatically reviewable. The other challenge confirmed the officials’ original call.
Glad-WIN: Six teams came to Finals seeking a first championship, and Gladwin prevailed with its 10-7 victory over Frankenmuth, another team seeking a first title. Coach Mark Jarstfer took over the program in 2019, with the Flying Gs riding a four-season sub-.500 streak. They finished 1-8 his first year, improved to 4-4 in 2020, then 9-1 last fall on the way to a perfect 14-0 this season. We highlighted some kickers above who made big impacts over the last two weekends, but the biggest kick surely belonged to Treyton Siegert as he drilled the history-making field goal Gladwin people will be talking about for generations.
Legends of the Finals: As noted above, De La Salle’s Brady Drogosh, King’s Dante Moore and North Central’s Luke Gorzinski capped careers that saw all three quarterback their teams to three Finals. Drogosh was 2-1 in championship matchups, completing 40 of 53 passes for 230 yards and five touchdowns and running for 339 yards and five scores over those three games. A four-year starter, Moore was 2-1 in championship games. He completed a combined 54 of 72 passes for 712 yards and five touchdowns in Finals. Gorzinski won all three of his championship games, completing a combined 25 of 48 passes for 447 yards and nine touchdowns. Despite being limited to just one carry because of injury two weeks ago, Gorzinski also ran for 425 yards and six scores in championship deciders.
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PHOTOS (Top) Our collage includes photos from all 10 MHSAA Football Finals. (2) Lumen Christi’s Kadale Williams looks for an opening upfield against Traverse City St. Francis. (3) Drake Buell (7) leads Martin onto the field for the 8-Player Division 1 Final. (4) Gladwin kicker Treyton Siegert connects on the game-winning field goal in 11-player Division 5. (11-Player Finals photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos. 8-Player Finals photos by Cara Kamps.)