John Raffel
Sports Scene
Morley Stanwood made the long trip to the Upper Peninsula and suffered a loss to Iron Mountain to end the season.
“They were definitely a good team and we just got outplayed that day,” Morley Stanwood’s outstanding running back Tyler Hanks said.
Morley Stanwood had to combat Iron Mountain’s home field advantage.
“Me personally, I don’t think it really made a difference,” Hanks said. “I don’t know what to say with it. It was tough loss and we have to move on with it.”
In both 2009 and 2010, Morley Stanwood went 9-0 during the regular season and was Central State Activities Association champion. In 2009, the Mohawks lost in the second round of the playoffs. They lost in the third round in 2010 to Menominee. This season they lost the CSAA title by one game to Reed City but advanced to the third round of the playoffs again.
Even with the loss to Iron Mountain, 2011 was a pleasant ride for the Mohawks.
“It’s been a good four years and definitely was a good season,” Hanks said. “It was a fun season and I had a great time.”
Clark Huntey has a coaching record of 31-4, including a 26-1 regular season record, during the past three seasons at Morley Stanwood.
“Overall, I couldn’t have been more happy,” Huntey said. “We set out to reach a goal, and one of those goals was to try to make it deep into the playoffs. I’m proud of the kids for getting back to [the regional finals].”
Huntey was happy with the way the team played week 9 of the regular season against Central Montcalm in a game that kept the Hornets out of the playoffs.
“To carry that over into the first two playoffs games…I thought we played one of our better defensive games against Shelby, a very good football team,” Huntey said. “We played pretty good football for a three-to-four week stretch.”
The Mohawks had some excellent players such as Hanks, Matt Parrish, and Tyler Wilcox on offense and Steven Hopkins, Ben Koster, and Adam Wheeler on defense.
But there were other unsung heroes for the Mohawks.
“On the defensive and offensive side, Steven Malloy did an outstanding job, especially at middle linebacker,” Huntey said. “We lost Ben Koster week 7 and I thought [Malloy] stepped up and did a good job, also at tight end. He did a fabulous job of creating a lot of yards our backs had through his position.”
It won’t be easy for the Mohawks to keep the current level of success going.
“We were pretty senior-dominated this year,” Huntey said. “Fifteen players were seniors. We have a lot of positions, we’ll have to fill holes with younger, inexperienced kids. How they work during the off-season and summer will dictate the type of season I’ll have next year. It will be difficult. We had a lot of seniors starting on both sides of the football.”