North Central Extends Dominance with 37th-Straight Win, 3rd-Straight Title
By
Jason Juno
Special for MHSAA.com
November 19, 2022
MARQUETTE – What a run it’s been for North Central.
The Jets haven’t lost a game over the last three years and very few, if any of those games, have been close. They’ve won them all by multiple touchdowns and just three games have finished with a margin under 30 points. Most have been won by a lot more.
Their opponent in Saturday’s Division 2 championship game, Mendon, brought a strong tradition of its own, with 12 previous Finals appearances.
But this is North Central’s era, and that’s no secret. So imagine what it must do to a team’s psyche when that juggernaut returns the opening kickoff and adds another touchdown before a full minute runs off the clock.
The Jets turned that 14-0 lead into a 66-26 win for their third consecutive – and fifth total – 8-player championship Saturday at the Superior Dome. They also won a state-record 37th straight game.
“It’s gotta be part of the mystique and part of what these kids built,” North Central coach Leo Gorzinski said. “You want to have a two-touchdown lead in their head before you get off that bus. When you come out there and do that, set that tone, of course it’s going to get in their mind.”
And North Central did it with standout quarterback, and reigning Associated Press Player of the Year Luke Gorzinski, playing through what the Jets suspect is an ACL injury.
It was Elijah Gorzinski who returned the opening kickoff 85 yards to put North Central on the board just 11 seconds into the contest. Mendon muffed the ensuing kickoff and North Central’s kicker, Adrian Mercier, recovered. Two plays later, Lane Gorzinski caught a 14-yard Luke Gorzinski pass for a touchdown and a 14-0 Jets lead 50 seconds into the game.
And North Central didn’t let up.
The Jets scored two more touchdowns in the first quarter, one on a 36-yard run by Dillon Raab and the other a 36-yard pass from Luke Gorzinski to Lane Gorzinski to make it 28-0.
Luke Gorzinski threw two TD passes in the second quarter, a 30-yarder to Dylan Plunger and another 20 yards to Jordan Messenger for a 41-6 lead at the half.
That opening kick return that set the tone came after North Central waited and waited for the D-1 title game to get over. The Jets went from amped up to play to the concession stand getting brats.
“We were flat; they were ready to take a nap,” Coach Gorzinski said. “Once that (return) happened, it was game on from there.”
That made four touchdown passes in the half for Gorzinski, who is explosive getting to the edge normally, but not Saturday with his injury. Leo said he wouldn’t get it checked out before the game because he just wanted to play, but Leo fears it will be an ACL injury once diagnosed.
“Thank God they didn’t catch on for a whole half that Luke Gorzinski can’t run,” Coach Gorzinski said. “He never ran a single time, and they never adjusted or blitzed him. I’ll praise God for that. Because if they would have blitzed him, I would have pulled him. That, for me, was the single thing – we knew they had a weak pass defense.”
Gorzinski ran for one touchdown in the second half, from a yard out. He caught a 33-yard TD pass and Lane Gorzinski ran 38 yards for six.
Jacob and Lane Gorzinski picked up the slack running the ball with 132 yards and 90 yards, respectively, with both getting eight carries. Four receivers caught touchdowns – Lane Gorzinski, Plunger, Messenger and Luke Gorzinski.
“If you watch what Jacob Gorzinski did today (on the ground), that’s Luke to a T, that’s Luke’s specialty. With Jacob Gorzinski stepping up, with Lane stepping up, with Dylan Plunger stepping up, the heart that Dillon Raab showed up there tonight, all of them, Max Nason, Jordan Messenger, Andrew Weber,” Coach Gorzinski said.
Luke Gorzinski finished the day with the single yard on the ground, and only that one carry, but he was 13 of 24 passing for 207 yards and four touchdowns.
He didn’t want to talk about how much it hurt.
“It’s Luke, man, he can play through anything,” Jacob Gorzinski said. “He’s a tough kid.”
Any way you slice it, Luke helped boost his team to a third-straight title.
“You come into this game knowing we could probably get the edge on these guys and we had good running out of our trip set, but with a bum wheel, we were limited,” he said. “We came out throwing a little more and put faith in our pass catchers, and they got it done.”
They made so many big plays, the kick return, long runs by the other guys, those big pass plays. It’s hard for an opponent to keep up.
“We did a lot of good things; we just gave up too many big plays. That’s really been our Achilles in our losses is giving up those big plays. But I give them a lot of the credit – they made the plays, they were making plays, ” Mendon coach Robert Kretschman said. “(Gorzinski) can sling the ball, he just put the ball on the money. They’re physical on the edge. That was probably one of the best perimeter blocking teams I’ve seen in a long time, 11-man, 8-man, they get after it. … Their physicality on the edge is something I don’t think we were quite prepared for.”
Mendon had an explosive player of its own in junior back Jack McCaw. He ran for three of the Hornets’ touchdowns, a 30-yarder in the second quarter to get on the board, a 58-yard rush to start the second half and a 70-yard score a few minutes later. Evan Lukeman scored Mendon’s final TD.
“We have Jack coming back. We’re excited about that,” Kretschman said.
North Central wants to keep its run going next year, but it won’t be easy after losing such a decorated group of seniors headlined by Luke Gorzinski.
Now they can savor all that they’ve done the last three years.
“We came out here to do it again; that was the goal for this season,” Jacob Gorzinski said.
And nobody was able to stop them.
PHOTOS (Top) Powers North Central’s Lane Gorzinski (6) and Dylan Plunger (10) celebrate an early touchdown Saturday at the Superior Dome. (Middle) Mendon’s Jack McCaw (21) bursts into an opening. (Below) The Jets line up on offense, led by quarterback Luke Gorzinski. (Photos by Cara Kamps.)
Harper Woods Stops Record-Setting South Christian on Final Play to Clinch 1st Title
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
November 25, 2023
DETROIT – Carson Vis had been getting away all afternoon.
The Grand Rapids South Christian quarterback had smashed Finals records for passing yards and total offense in Saturday’s Division 4 Final against Harper Woods, mostly by evading pressure and finding his senior receiver Jake Vermaas for big plays.
So, when the Sailors needed just three yards to tie the game with three seconds to play, Harper Woods made sure they knew where Vermaas was, and that Vis didn’t get away one more time.
Defensive end Javonte Lee-Forbes put immediate pressure on Vis, draping himself on his legs and forcing the 6-foot-4 junior to attempt to fit in a pass – not to Vermaas. Keyontae Wilson broke it up, preserving a 33-27 victory for the Pioneers and giving them the first Finals title in program history.
“We were keying on two things, No. 2 (Vermaas) and No. 5 (Vis),” Harper Woods coach Rod Oden said. “First we needed to identify where (Vermaas) was, and two, we needed to cup the pocket and keep (Vis) inside, and he almost still got outside. Once we were able to contain the quarterback, we knew he had to try to just make a play, and we made a play. We made one more play than they did.”
In a game that featured 1,030 yards of total offense (533 from South Christian, 497 from Harper Woods), the second-most in Finals history, it’s not exactly fitting that the defense won the deciding play.
But it was something Oden knew his team would need, eventually.
“I’m glad it came down to the end,” he said. “Our defense, we knew it would come down to them for us to win the championship. The offense has kind of been consistent all year, and (the defense) had an opportunity to go out there and make a play, and they made it.”
Both offenses spent most of the game making plays, led by Vis’ record-breaking performance.
He threw for 441 yards on 30 of 44 passing with two touchdowns and one interception. His passing yards broke the record previously set by Armani Posey of Detroit Martin Luther King in 2015 (383). His 30 completions were also a record, breaking the previous mark of 26 set by Cooper Rush of Lansing Catholic (2011) and AJ Westendorp of Holland Christian (2008).
Adding in his 72 rushing yards, Vis finished with 513 yards of total offense, well ahead of Westendorp’s 426, which was the previous record. And all of that – plus a little more – came in the final three quarters, as he had negative-6 total yards through the first 12 minutes.
“I would say it was first-quarter nerves,” Vis said. “I wasn’t being myself out there. Not relaxed and not getting into it. We started getting some easy completions, we were trying to take shots early on. I started getting into a rhythm and started getting it to my guys who were getting open. Definitely (I can appreciate how well I played), but I feel for my guys, my seniors. Some of them, this is our last time playing. So I’m just going to try my best to love on them and be with them.”
Harper Woods didn’t set any records, but had multiple big-time offensive performances, as well, despite losing 1,000-yard rusher Colby Bailey on the second play of the game.
Donald Adams took on the rushing load for the Pioneers (11-3) and starred, rushing for 174 yards on 17 carries. Quarterback Nate Rocheleau had 210 yards and two TDs on 10-of-17 passing. Dakota Guerrant had four catches for 84 yards and a score, while Ramonty Houze had a single catch that went 90 yards for a TD.
“On the one to Ramonty, I had been trying to get it all game,” Rocheleau said. “It was man-to-man press with no high safety, and Ramonty is the fastest guy on the field, so we wanted to take that shot and it worked. The one to Dakota, we worked on that all week in practice where we’re in trips and we stack it, he popped wide open.”
The TD to Houze had the feeling of a back-breaker, as it put Harper Woods up 27-7 early in the third quarter. More so than the lead, it came after South Christian had made its way deep into Harper Woods territory with a chance to make it a one-score game. But Corey Bailey forced and recovered a fumble to end the threat.
It was the second time in as many South Christian possessions that a chance to pull within a single score had ended in a turnover. On the final play of the first half, Wilson intercepted a Vis pass in the end zone after the Sailors had made their way to the Harper Woods 9.
But none of it fazed the Sailors (10-4), who were seeking their second-straight Finals title.
Following Houze’s TD, South Christian finally did pull to within one score at 27-20, getting TD runs from Charlie Schreur (1 yard) and Vis (22 yards).
Harper Woods stretched it back to a 13-point lead with a 10-play, 85-yard drive, capped off by a 1-yard TD run by Stephone Buford.
But when Noah Funk scored on a 12-yard pass from Vis less than two minutes later, South Christian had again pulled to within a score, and a defensive stop set up the final drive, and the late-game drama.
“The message at halftime was, ‘We’ve been resilient, and nothing you ever do in life, when you’re chasing success, is going to be easy. There’s going to be adversity,’” South Christian coach Danny Brown said. “And that was the message. These are a bunch of great guys that do things the right way. If there was ever a time to come and climb that mountain of a little adversity, the second half was that time. They fought like crazy, and I’m proud of them to keep swinging, and we almost had it.”
Harper Woods jumped out a 14-0 lead with first-quarter TD runs by Buford and Dwight Houston. A 39-yard TD pass from Vis to Vermaas put the Sailors on the board in the second quarter, but Guerrant’s 27-yard TD catch had the Pioneers up 20-7 at the half.
Houston finished with 62 yards rushing for the Pioneers, while Buford had 46 to go along with two TDs.
Austin Tiesma had eight catches for 120 yards for South Christian, while Funk had five for 61.
PHOTOS (Top) Harper Woods raises its first football championship trophy after winning the Division 4 Final on Saturday. (Middle) South Christian's Carson Vis (5) unloads a pass as the Pioneers' Johnny Nelson (21) and Javonta Lee-Forbes (28) apply pressure. (Below) Dwight Houston (3) gets ready to make his move as South Christian's Austin Tiesma (7) gets into position to make the stop. (Photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)