Suttons Bay Succeeding at Football Numbers Game
By
Tom Spencer
Special for MHSAA.com
December 3, 2021
Suttons Bay is, well, playing the numbers game.
Not by choice. It’s been by necessity — since a painful football decision was made in September 2016. Many of Michigan’s smaller schools have made a similar decision.
Most of the numbers, the Norsemen can use just one hand to count. Some take two hands. Others you can’t use your hands. We’re not talking illegal use of the hands either.
The first number is 11, the healthy and available Norsemen for their third game of 2016, their last season of 11-man football.
Hand counting starts now with 1. The 2016 quarterback and only football player to join the soccer team, Jack Pasche, actually kicked off to start of the Norsemen’s homecoming game win that season against Glen Lake. Suttons Bay, known as NorthBay through a co-op with Northport and Leelanau St. Mary’s, beat Glen Lake 4-0 as the soccer match took center stage for homecoming due to the tough decision to forfeit the remaining seven games on the 2016 football schedule.
Move on to the number 8. The Norseman started competing in 8-player football in 2017 and went the playoffs, losing to eventual champion Central Lake. Fast forward to 4. Garrick Opie took over the head coaching duties and just completed his fourth season.
Now to 5. Suttons Bay, which also co-ops with Leelanau St. Mary’s for football, has lost only five games total over Opie’s four seasons. Back to one … just one loss in regular season. The other four came during the MHSAA Playoffs.
Before getting to 3 – perhaps the most notable number – count to 14. That’s the number of players on the 2021 Suttons Bay football roster – and six of them were seniors.
“We’re going to have to fill some shoes on defense especially,” said assistant coach Stan Pasch. ‘We’ve got some good offensive lineman coming back. We’ve got to fill some shoes on our offensive ends too.”
Hand counting becomes more challenging now, starting with 47.
Pasch has coached football for 47 years. He has a long history with Suttons Bay and Leelanau St. Mary, including providing guidance in basketball, volleyball and track. He’s also been on the sidelines for Beal City and Traverse City St. Francis.
He’s had long stints as an assistant for legendary coaches Larry Sellers of St. Francis and Joe Trudeau of Suttons Bay. He was with St. Francis when they won the Class C championship in 1992.
Among those coached by Pasch on that ‘92 Gladiators team was Mark Bramer, a four-year letterman with St. Francis and the father of Shawn Bramer. The younger Bramer scored the game-tying touchdown in Suttons Bay’s 42-36 overtime win against Rudyard in the Division 1 Semifinal three weeks ago.
The junior running back Bramer, who attends St. Mary, was one of three Norsemen named first-team all-state. The other two were wide receiver Brayden Opie and defensive lineman Cam Alberts.
Mark Bramer has been thrilled to have his son play under his former coach and enjoy the playoff runs the past three seasons.
“Coach Pasch still has the passion and the spark and everything,” Mark Bramer said. “He hasn’t really changed, and it’s a good thing.
“I know the excitement as an athlete and now watch it as a parent – it is a great community thing,” he continued. “As a player back then, you never really knew that side of it, and now on the flip side you get to see the excitement of the community.”
Pasch came back to the Suttons Bay coaching staff in 2000 and has been there since. He credits Opie’s leadership for the Norsemen reaching championship games each of the last three seasons.
“Garrick does a great job of leading the team,” Pasch said. “He has really worked hard to solidly the passing game with the kids and getting the kids to believe in themselves.
“He has done a lot of good things and really opened up the offense,” Pasch continued. “When you need a big play – which the kids have done quite a bit – the kids pull it off because they had fun with it in practice.”
Opie, who previously coached all his players in Pop Warner football, has compiled a 43-5 record at Suttons Bay. He too is thrilled to have Pasch and his experience on the sidelines with him.
“I can’t do it without Stan,” he said. “Not only is he my right-hand man … he brings so much experience from his St. Francis days and his 260-plus games with Suttons Bay.
“His experience and way he deals with young men … Stan is invaluable.”
Now back to the number 3. The head coach’s sons Bryce, Braden and Grayson, have all played for Suttons Bay during playoff runs. Grayson will be back next year as the Norsemen strive to make another.
Football fans know the history of John Elway losing his first three Super Bowls, and the Buffalo Bills losing their four straight from 1991-94. But the Norsemen players aren’t really aware of it.
“They’d be lucky if they remember Brett Favre,” joked the Mark Bramer. “I have to tell them about Barry Sanders!”
Opie can laugh about it too as he knows the Norseman can rebuild again. Mike Lodish, a personal friend of Opie and former all-state player with Birmingham Brother Rice, held the record for most Super Bowl appearances with six until Tom Brady broke it. Lodish played his first four with the Bills and then won two with Elway. He played five years with the Bills under coach Marv Levy, and six with the Broncos.
“You can call me Marv Levy,” Opie said with a laugh. “You can call me whatever you want as far as that’s concerned.
“Every year it is our intentions to get to the state finals and win one,” he continued. “Is it a prediction? No. I never do that.”
Opie and Pasch will work in the offseason that number 1. They’ll use a familiar formula.
“I never make any assumptions about any season no matter what players we have,” Opie said. “We’ve had a lot of talent, but we’ve also been able to place kids in the spots (where) they will best succeed.
“We never want to put them in a spot where they will fail,” he went on. “Our goal is to find where each young man can succeed, and we’ve been very fortunate we’ve been right many of the times the last four years.”
Tom Spencer is a longtime MHSAA-registered basketball and soccer official, and former softball and baseball official, and he also has coached in the northern Lower Peninsula area. He previously has written for the Saginaw News, Bay County Sports Page and Midland Daily News. He can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Manistee, Wexford, Missaukee, Roscommon, Ogemaw, Iosco, Alcona, Oscoda, Crawford, Kalkaska, Grand Traverse, Benzie, Leelanau, Antrim, Otsego, Montmorency, Alpena, Presque Isle, Cheboygan, Charlevoix and Emmet counties.
PHOTOS (Top) Suttons Bay coach Garrick Opie hugs his son Brayden at midfield after Brayden caught the game-winning touchdown pass in the Semifinal. (Middle) Shawn Bramer outruns his stunned teammates on his way to the game-tying score during the final seconds of regulation against Rudyard. (Photos by Mike Spencer.)
4th-Quarter Comeback Caps Season-Long Rally as Lumen Claims 12th Title
By
Paul Costanzo
Special for MHSAA.com
November 26, 2022
DETROIT – Battling back to overcome a slow start was a theme to Jackson Lumen Christi’s football season.
After starting the fall 0-3, Lumen Christi rattled off 10 straight wins to advance to Saturday’s Division 7 championship game.
So when the Titans faced a 12-point, fourth-quarter deficit against Traverse City St. Francis, there was no panic on the sidelines – just motivation to overcome it.
“Everybody, we just don’t give up,” Lumen Christi running back Derrick Walker said. “We all know the work we put in, and everything we did in the offseason and throughout the season. There were not too many people that believed in us, but we believed in ourselves. I told them that we’re not out of this game until the clock hits zero.”
Walker and his teammates had one more comeback in them, rallying for a 15-12 victory against the Gladiators to claim the school’s 12th Finals title, and first since 2018.
The win avenged one of those three losses from the beginning of the season, as St. Francis topped Lumen Christi 42-35 in Week 2.
“It was so motivating,” Lumen Christi quarterback Joe Lathers said of the early-season loss. “That’s the one thing that we were talking about all week, that we played them and lost to them earlier in the season. Also, we had an 0-3 start and faced so much adversity. A lot of people doubted us.”
Being doubted isn’t something Lumen Christi (11-3) has been able to claim often, especially not during the more than 40 years coach Herb Brogan has been in charge. Saturday’s victory was his 395th leading Lumen Christi, compared to 94 losses. It was also his 10th Finals title, breaking a tie for second most by a coach with former Bloomfield Hills Brother Rice coach Al Fracassa. Former Farmington Hills Harrison coach John Herrington holds the record with 13.
“It’s the same as the other nine (titles),” Brogan said. “It’s just great for the kids. Because no matter how many we’ve had before, they haven’t had one. That’s where the focus is at.”
Getting to No. 10 was a grind, not only in navigating the 0-3 start to the season, but in getting anything going against the Gladiators’ defense.
Lumen Christi had just 64 yards of offense at halftime, as it trailed 12-0. Eventually, though, the Titans began to find some success, specifically on the ground with Lathers. Lumen rushed for 112 yards in the fourth quarter as it mounted its comeback. Lathers had 89 of those fourth-quarter yards, and finished the game with 115 yards on the ground and 99 through the air.
Lathers scored Lumen Christi’s first touchdown on an 18-yard run 50 seconds into the fourth quarter, while Walker scored on a 2-yard run with 7:05 to play. An extra point by Andrew Salazar, and a two-point fumble recovered in the end zone by Conor Smith, ended up making the three-point difference.
“I think one of the things, I think that hurt them, is they’re so good they didn’t have to play many four-quarter games,” Brogan said. “Then you move from the up north environment to indoors and it gets hot like it did, I think they wore down a little bit.”
St. Francis (13-1) would get the ball just once more after Walker’s score, and that drive ended on an interception by Lumen Christi’s Alex Pastoriza.
Lumen Christi took over with 6:21 left on the clock and ran it all the way down by getting four first downs. The biggest was the first, as Walker converted a 4th-and-1 from the Lumen Christi 46-yard line.
“I had confidence that we were going to be able to get it,” Brogan said. “Too many bad things happen when you punt the ball. We struggled with the snap a few times. They came close to blocking the one. I felt good about our chances.”
The play was close, but Walker was sure of it before he hit the ground.
“The line had a great push,” he said. “I knew I had it. I was screaming, ‘Yes sir,’ as I was going down. Great push.”
While Lumen Christi’s offense was getting going, its defense was standing firm. St. Francis gained just 29 yards in the second half, after going for 200 in the first. The Gladiators also barely had the ball, as they ran just 12 second-half plays.
“We won the first half and lost the second half,” St. Francis coach Josh Sellers said. “We didn’t play how we typically play, but a lot of that had to do with the way Jackson Lumen Christi played us today. It’s a bitter pill to swallow for sure, especially because a lot of these guys were in the same position a couple of years ago, and had the intent of righting that runner-up finish with a championship. We just couldn’t get it done today.”
St. Francis built its lead with a pair of rushing touchdowns in the second quarter. Joey Donahue had the first with a 1-yard run, while Wyatt Nausadis had the second with a 9-yard run.
Nausadis finished with a team-leading 77 yards rushing. Donahue and Josh Hagelstein each had 13 tackles for the Gladiators, with Hagelstein adding a pair of interceptions. Garrett Hathaway had eight tackles, including four for loss and two sacks.
Smith and Devian Franklin led the Lumen Christi defense with seven tackles apiece.
PHOTOS (Top) Lumen Christi quarterback Joe Lathers (12) charges toward the end zone during the fourth quarter of Saturday’s Division 7 Final. (Middle) The Titans’ Derrick Walker (4) and Conor Smith (99) celebrate Walker’s fourth-quarter touchdown. (Below) Britton Hampton (3) makes his move during the kickoff return. (Click for more from Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)