Romeo Raises 1st Champion's Trophy
November 28, 2015
By Bill Khan
Special for Second Half
DETROIT — With a championship on the line and the margin for error too thin, Paul Hurley couldn't have been faulted if he started looking elsewhere to throw the football.
But Romeo's senior quarterback never lost faith in tight end Mitch Heimbuch, not even after the Western Michigan University recruit dropped two passes while wide open.
"Mitch probably has the best hands on the team, so it was really bizarre for us to see him drop two passes today," Hurley said. "It was never in my head when I was throwing to him. I knew if I was throwing to him, he was catching it."
Heimbuch was sure-handed when it mattered the most, catching three passes for 46 yards on the game-clinching drive, as Romeo beat Detroit Cass Tech, 41-27, in the MHSAA Division 1 championship game Saturday at Ford Field. Heimbuch even grabbed the 2-point pass following Brad Tanner's 16-yard touchdown run with 1:29 remaining in the game.
"Everyone still believed in me. Everyone was still coming up to me telling me to just get over it, forget about it," Heimbuch said. "I just knew I had to make a play if it came back to me. I forget my drops. You can't think too much on them or else they'll kill you."
Romeo scored six touchdowns, blocked a punt and recovered an onside kick to start the second half, but one of the key plays in the Bulldogs' first championship victory was a 12-yard catch by Heimbuch on second-and-13 on the second play of the final drive. That set up a manageable third-and-one and got the drive rolling. He also had catches of 12 and 22 yards on an 11-play, 75-yard march that consumed 5:45 from the clock, leaving Cass Tech little time to produce a miracle comeback similar to Detroit Martin Luther King's in the Division 2 Final on Friday.
Just when it looked like Romeo (13-1) would simply run out the clock, Tanner broke free from 16 yards out for his third touchdown of the game. He finished with a game-high 130 yards on 13 carries.
The drive began after a 36-yard touchdown pass from Aaron Jackson to Donovan People-Jones got Cass Tech within 33-27 with 7:15 remaining.
"I knew I just had to run hard on the play and good things would happen," Tanner said. "On that last drive, the whole time I knew if we just killed the clock, we'd be victorious."
Even before his three key catches on the final drive, Heimbuch made a major contribution to the victory on defense.
He blitzed Jackson and got a sack to force a fumble, which was recovered by Romeo's Austen Malczewski at the Cass Tech 40 with 10:36 left in the second quarter. Four plays later, Tanner's second touchdown run from 31 yards out gave the Bulldogs a 19-7 lead.
"We changed the call at the last second to a two-linebacker blitz," Heimbuch said. "It just opened up. The D-linemen took away their guard and center. I shot the gap. He just lost the ball; he panicked, I think."
Romeo scored on its first three possessions before Heimbuch's first drop on third-and-seven ended the fourth drive. The Bulldogs took that 19-7 lead into halftime.
Taking a page out of Sean Payton's book from the New Orleans Saints' Super Bowl victory in the 2009 season, Romeo's coaches called for an onside kick to start the second half. Kicker Zach Nies recovered his own kick at the Cass Tech 48-yard line. Six plays later, Domenico Bongiorno bulled his way 10 yards up the middle for a touchdown, extending Romeo's lead to 26-14 with 9:49 left in the third quarter.
"They have unbelievable return guys, so we were not supposed to kick it to them at all," Romeo co-coach Curt Rienas said. "We actually thought there was a 70-percent chance we would recover it. When you look at only a 15-yard difference in field position, we thought that was a good gamble on our part."
Recovering onside kicks was a priority in practice all week for Cass Tech (11-3) after it failed to cover three in its Semifinal victory over Canton.
"That really ticked me off the most, out of anything that happened today," Cass Tech coach Thomas Wilcher said. "As far as trick plays or big plays, that one hurt the most, because we taught the kids what to do. We talked about it, met about it; they just froze. We lost three onside kicks, so that was the most important thing going into the game, just making sure we got all the short kicks."
Special teams had another huge impact when John Verellen blocked a punt and Anthony Quas returned the loose ball 18 yards to the Cass Tech 20. Hurley scrambled for a 20-yard touchdown on the next play, putting Romeo ahead 33-14 with 7:00 left in the third quarter.
One day after Detroit Public School League rival King rallied from 18 points down to win the Division 2 title, Cass Tech provided the host city some hope for another miracle comeback.
Jackson threw a 17-yard touchdown pass to Demetric Vance with 2:14 left in the third quarter, following a Khalid Jordan interception, and a 36-yarder to People-Jones with 7:15 remaining to make it a six-point game.
It was only the second start for Jackson, a sophomore who took over in the Semifinal game when junior starter Rodney Hall was injured. Jackson finished 19 for 27 for 194 yards and two touchdowns Saturday.
"These two starts have really been a big confidence booster for me," Jackson said. "I have a great offense, a great defense. I really love my teammates. These great athletes right here did this; I played a really small role."
Jackson wouldn't get the ball back until Romeo had run the clock down to 1:29 and added eight more points to the deficit.
People-Jones caught eight passes for 85 yards and a touchdown, with his first seven catches going for nine yards or fewer.
"They tackled great," the highly-recruited junior receiver said. "They rallied to the football, which made it harder to escape and make big plays."
To win its first championship, Romeo had to knock off three teams that combined for five of the last six Division 1 titles.
The Bulldogs opened the playoffs by ending Clarkston's two-year reign, 28-14. In the Regional Final, they beat a Detroit Catholic Central team that won the 2009 championship and was runner-up three years in a row from 2011-13. Romeo completed the journey against a Cass Tech squad that won the 2011 and 2012 championships.
It was only the second MHSAA championship for the school, the other won a year ago by the volleyball team.
"The Romeo community was a sea of red," Romeo co-coach Jason Couch said. "I would like to see if anybody else brought as many as Romeo did. If they did, I applaud them. The community shut down. They were here. Businesses were closing. That just shows the support.
"The reason they come out and support the boys is because they're busy in the offseason and in season supporting them with community service and doing other events and activities throughout the community. That's why we graduated from Romeo and we're back in Romeo; it sucks you in. We're proud to be Bulldogs."
The MHSAA Football Finals are sponsored by the Michigan National Guard.
PHOTOS: (Top) Romeo’s coaches and players host their first football championship trophy Saturday at Ford Field. (Middle) Quarterback Paul Hurley hands off to Bradley Tanner (21) during the Division 1 Final.
Ubly Sends Out Retiring Coach with Program's 1st Finals Win in D8 Rematch
By
Scott DeCamp
Special for MHSAA.com
November 25, 2023
DETROIT – You could not have written a better script for Ubly’s football program and its tight-knit Thumb community Saturday at Ford Field.
The Bearcats captured their first Finals championship, avenged last year’s title-game loss to Ottawa Lake Whiteford, and sent head coach Eric Sweeney into retirement a champion with a 21-6 victory over the Bobcats in the Division 8 title game.
Might Sweeney consider an encore and coach another year?
“No!” Sweeney quickly responded with conviction, prompting laughter among attendees of the press conference and even his own players before adding another “no.”
Sweeney served as Ubly’s head varsity coach for only four seasons, but he compiled a 48-5 overall record. He led the Bearcats to the top of the mountain after the program had made several title pursuits prior to Saturday, including a last year’s which ended with a 26-20 loss to Whiteford and a 2020 Finals run that concluded with a 22-0 defeat to Centreville.
“You know, I’m done. I’ve coached for 23 years at every level there is. No, this makes it easier to walk away,” Sweeney said. “I loved coaching all these years. I got to coach these guys (referring to his players at the press conference) for four years at the varsity level. I coached them in seventh-grade basketball. I know these kids pretty good.
“My kids are all well out of high school, and there’s just other things I want to do in life. I’m just proud I’m leaving the program in the condition that it is.”
It may be impossible to leave it better than Sweeney and the Bearcats did Saturday and throughout their perfect journey in 2023.
Ubly completed this run with a 14-0 record and did it the Bearcat way – with physicality at the point of attack, a clock-grinding, ball-control offense; and a very stingy defense. The Bearcats outscored their opponents this season by a combined 596-134 margin.
“It means a lot. Like, last year, we lost here and we felt terrible for the seniors, the way we went out, basically on a last-second thing,” said Ubly senior Evan Peruski, who also started at quarterback in the Bearcats’ 2022 and 2020 Finals losses.
“It means everything. I mean, a lot of us up here, we’re friends with kids that played 10, 20 years ago. I saw about 30 of them in the crowd, people I knew that played 20, 30 years ago. They’re there supporting us.”
Whiteford, which was seeking its third Division 8 title since 2017, saw a 27-game winning streak end and closed the season with a 13-1 record – a tough conclusion to a tremendous two-year run.
“I’ve been coaching football a long time. I don’t think I’ve ever had an experience of a senior group like these guys that we have,” said Todd Thieken, who finished his second season as Whiteford’s head coach but has been in the game since the late 1980s with various stops in Michigan and Ohio.
“A couple of seniors came up to me after the game and they said, ‘I’m sorry, coach.’ I just said to them, ‘I’m just sorry that I don’t ever get to coach you again,’” Thieken added, getting a bit choked up. “I’m still going to be around and in their lives and making sure that they continue to get through school and be successful young men.”
Well-executing Ubly and Whiteford squads engaged in a game of keep-away, both aiming to possess the football and keep it out of the opponent’s hands.
Ubly won that battle, possessing the ball for nearly a 2-to-1 margin (31:51-16:09). The Bearcats nearly doubled up the Bobcats in total offense as well, 310-165, led by an overwhelming advantage in rushing yardage (281-60).
Senior Seth Maurer led Ubly with 138 yards on 27 carries, highlighted by his 4-yard touchdown run that drew the teams even with 1:31 left in the first half before senior Brett Mueller hammered through the ensuing PAT for a 7-6 edge.
Whiteford had struck first in the contest. Ubly’s game-opening, 16-play, 79-yard drive that consumed 8:01 of the clock was stopped just shy of the goal line after a review determined Peruski’s knee was down inside the 1. Whiteford then marched 99 yards the other way and got into the end zone on a 4-yard scoring pass from freshman Tre Eitniear to senior Hunter DeBarr. The two-point conversion pass failed, but the Bobcats led 6-0 with 8:11 left in the second quarter.
Ubly’s defense settled in after that, allowing only 66 yards the rest of the way.
Meanwhile, Ubly’s offense continued to move the ball. The Bearcats extended their lead to 14-6 on Peruski’s 11-yard TD pass to senior Ryan Learman on 4th-and-goal from the 11. Junior Luke Volmering all but put the game away with his 3-yard scoring run with 6:13 remaining.
“I think our line does a great job. The big fella here (pointing to 6-foot-3, 270-pound senior lineman Mitchell Foote) had a heck of a game today,” Sweeney said. “When you’re running our offense, it’s an offensive line game. I’m an offensive line coach, so you know, it’s kind of my kind of game. I’m not smart enough for all this fancy passing stuff.
“We’ve got to play the game at the line of scrimmage, and I thought defensively our D-line made some big plays as it went on and the secondary did a great job, too. … The game was won at the line of scrimmage.”
Peruski did enough to keep Whiteford’s defense honest. He ran six times for 32 yards and completed 2 of 3 passes for 29 yards. Volmering ran 16 times for 77 yards. Ubly senior Canden Peruski led the defense with 11 tackles.
Whiteford senior Jake Iott was all over the field, registering 18 tackles. Bobcats senior Kolby Masserant made 13 stops, while senior teammate Ryin Ruddy notched 11 tackles. Eitniear was 6-of-11 passing for 78 yards, while Ruddy went 3-of-4 for 27 yards. Iott led his team on the ground with 37 yards on 12 carries.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity. You know, I’ve been starting for four years on varsity,” DeBarr said. “I’m glad the coaches and some of my teammates could make me a better player for those four years. We won a lot of big games and, you know, you lose a couple of big games. It was fun.”
Saturday marked Ubly’s fourth Finals appearance. The Bearcats also had lost to Traverse City St. Francis in the Division 7 Final in 2008.
Sweeney attributed much of Ubly’s success over the past couple of decades to his cousin, former head coach Bill Sweeney. The Bearcats have won 10 Regional titles over the last 20 years.
Eric Sweeney also credited the unwavering support of Ubly’s community and that of the Bearcats’ rival schools along the way. Ubly spent the week practicing indoors at the Laker Legacy Center of rival Elkton-Pigeon-Bay Port.
“It’s not as much for me personally. It’s for our community,” Sweeney said. “The support we get from the Thumb area is unreal. It just means a lot.”
Said Foote: “It just means the world. Best coach I’ve ever had. He’s always pushed us. (They) just had to make him go out with a state championship. It would be a shame to not give him one.”
PHOTOS (Top) Ubly coach Eric Sweeney presents the Division 8 championship trophy to his team Saturday morning at Ford Field. (Middle) The Bearcats’ Seth Maurer (30) follows teammate Canden Peruski’s block into a small gap in the Whiteford defense. (Below) Mitchell Foote (76) brings down the Bobcats’ Ryin Ruddy. (Photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)