Ben Murphy
Sports Scene
It’s safe to say that the 2011 football season went well for Nouvel Catholic Central. Behind the potent ground game of Bennett Lewis, the play-making ability of Gabe Augestin, Clay Henterson, Ty Jacobs, Mich Jacqmain, Nick Hammis, Josh Buchalski, and Joe Buchalsi rolled to a perfect 13-0 record and a Division 7 state championship, outscoring their opponents 581-116 along the way.
“You’ve got a whole combination of factors that came together to create a season like that,” Nouvel head coach Mike Boyd said. “We had a very talented group of kids as seniors. They were extremely motivated, hard-working, talented kids. When you have kids like that, it certainly leads to a season like that.”
The Panthers have frequently fielded some of the best high school football teams in the state, annually making deep post-season runs and winning state titles in 2006 and 2007.
“They pushed [expectations] back up there,” Boyd said of last year’s team. “The number one challenge for this group is to not be complacent and fill the shoes of the great leaders that left us.”
While last year’s roster was full of senior-laden skill position players, the 2012 team will have experience on the lines, returning with Josh Schipper, Steve Ulicki, Matt Ross, Brad Ross, Josh Koeplinger, and Tyler Jacqmain. Drew King is expected to be the starting quarterback, while Ryan Sullivan could see a significant number of carries out of the back field.
“I’m not sure that you go about it by trying to replace them; it’s not like you’re looking at them and saying how are we going to replace this individual or this one,” Boyd said. “It’s always been our philosophy to take a look at the group that we have and design the offense to fit the strengths of the kids that we do have. So, our offense will look slightly different. Defensively we return a lot of kids, so there won’t be a lot of changes there. We just have to have some kids develop throughout the year.”
As an independent, the Panthers have pieced together a schedule that is both challenging and also has a lot of unknowns.
“What makes it difficult is we are playing so many new teams,” Boyd said. “It’s hard to get into a scenario situation where you’ve got a history with somebody, so you know what to expect. It’s a tough way to start the season, new opponents and three out of the first four games are playoff qualifiers, one a state champion [Powers Catholic,] one a state runner up [Lansing Catholic,] and another a young playoff team [Grosse Pointe Woods.] We don’t have a lot of time to grow up. We have to be able to run the football and be able to play good defense, especially against the run.”
One thing is certain. According to Boyd, the tradition of strong football teams at Nouvel isn’t going away any time soon.
“[We’re] proud of the tradition that’s been established by the kids by working hard and being prepared, and that they take a lot of pride in representing Nouvel,” Boyd said. “It means something to them to go out to represent Nouvel by playing hard. Another point of pride that we have is that when you do those things, it doesn’t really matter. It’s great to win, but we’ve lost some big games over the years that they had nothing to hang their heads about, because they knew that they went out there and played their best and gave great effort out on the field, and that’s all you can really ask for. If you do that on a consistent basis, you’re going to have success.”