John Raffel
Sports Scene
Montabella’s football season was one for the books as far as Mustangs fans were concerned.
Coach David Clay’s squad was 8-1 during the regular season, falling only to powerful Sacred Heart Academy in the Mid-State Activities Conference.
The Mustangs won close games to open the season, with 34-32, 26-16, and 22-20 listings over Evart, Coleman, and Manistee Catholic Central. Sacred Heart dominated the Mustangs 35-6.
But it was all Mustangs after that, with 43-8, 32-26, 48-28, 68-3, and 40-7 wins over Ashley, Vestaburg, Onekama, Crossroads Charter Academy, and St. Louis.
The Mustangs took a five-game winning streak into the playoffs and extended it on the road with a 38-22 win over Bendle.
But the honeymoon ended with a 62-6 loss to eventual Division 7 state champion Nouvel Catholic Central.
Nine wins in one season is the most in school history.
“Anything is possible any given year,” Clay said. “When we looked at this year, our numbers were down and started the year with 15 on the varsity, including some freshmen and sophomores. We’re not a very big team. It didn’t look like a nine-win season at all, based on those factors.
“As coaches, we thought maybe five or six wins, but definitely not a nine-win season.”
Leadership from the senior class helped do the job.
“They worked really hard during the off-season,” Clay said. “They conditioned during the summer. There was a group of sophomores and freshmen that bought into the leadership for the seniors, took their lead, and everything jelled.”
Charlie Helmer at quarterback and Jemikal Papendick at receiver were a key part of the offense.
Tyler House was a freshman lineman who earned all-conference honorable mention honors.
“We had three running backs that were quality kids,” Clay said, referring to Logan Burns, Landan Burns, and Derek Martin.
Johnny Durham had a strong season catching the ball and blocking. “Travis Dunn, who is pretty much undersized but had 115 tackles this year and was a leader of that defense inside. There several kids that stepped up,” Clay said.
Many of the wins came down to the final moments of the games, Clay noted.
“We got to Vestaburg and were down 21-0 going into the late second quarter,” Clay said. “We went on the bus at halftime and I told the team ‘if you don’t believe we’ll win the game get off the bus now.’ No one got off the bus and we went back onto the field. That really sparked us. From that point, they believed they could overcome anyone. We played some of the best football of any team that I’ve coached.”
In his four years at Montabella, Clay has taken a team to the playoffs three times.
“We’re losing a couple of good seniors, all the seniors we’re losing are strong,” Clay said. “But we have a very strong, very committed underclassmen [group] with freshmen and sophomores who are very committed to filling shoes. Every year you lose kids. One of the successes to building a tradition is you lose kids, and young kids come up and fill those shoes.
“The future looks pretty bright.”