High School Football: Clinton blanks rival Hudson to win LCAA title outright

In the final week of the regular season, eight Lenawee County schools were playing for playoff positions while four more were playing for pride.

Here's how Week 9 played out:

CLINTON 29, HUDSON 0

CLINTON — The Division 7 sixth-ranked Redwolves secured the LCAA title outright by shutting out the Division 8 No. 10 Tigers.

Clinton's (8-1, 7-0 LCAA) defense held Hudson (7-2, 5-2 LCAA) to 64 yards while the offense rushed for 351 yards with nobody going over 100 yards, but five with at least 35.

The Redwolves led 12-0 after the first quarter and the score remained until the fourth quarter.

"That's a tough Hudson team," Clinton coach Casey Randolph said. "They are tough every year. Our kids wanted this and they reached down when things got sticky and they pulled out the x-factor."

Nik Shadley had 91 yards, including a 13-yard touchdown, and caught a pass from Andy Fair for a 32-yard score. Bryce Randolph rushed for 88 yards and a 1-yard touchdown while Cole Breitenwischer went for 85 yards, Jacob Felts rushed for 49 and Joey Preston rushed for 36 with a 12-yard touchdown.

Wyatt Hicks kicked a 29-yard field goal.

Aiden Lopinski led the Tigers with nine tackles.

"The first nine games is getting ready for the postseason," Hudson coach Dan Rogers said. "If you can survive our league and complete, with us being the small school in the league, I'm proud of our kids for doing that. We were in the conversation for a league title up until the last week. I'm proud of the kids."

SAND CREEK 36, ERIE MASON 14 

SAND CREEK — Two second half touchdowns allowed Sand Creek to pull away from the Eagles and punch its ticket to the 2023 playoffs.

Sand Creek (5-4, 2-1 TCC) got two touchdowns and 196 yards rushing from Ivan Wilkinson. Carson Preston caught a 16-yard touchdown pass from Cole Scharer and Jordan Illenden had a 4-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter for the Aggies.

Wilkinson had 37 carries. The Aggies had 64 rushes for 347 yards as a team.

BLISSFIELD 28, MADISON 0 

MADISON TWP. — Blissfield secured its spot in the playoffs by shutting out Madison.

Kassidy Lenz rushed for two scores and Jack Deatrick threw touchdown passes to Mason Case and Blake Iffland. Lenz had 158 yards rushing.

Brian Dopp threw for 118 yards and had 50 yards rushing for the Trojans, who finished the season 1-8 (1-6 LCAA).

The Royals are 5-4 (4-3 LCAA).

TECUMSEH 41, BAY CITY JOHN GLENN 13 

BAY CITY — Tyler Clement threw three touchdowns and ran for two more as Tecumseh improved to 5-4 and clinched a playoff berth.

AJ Bryan rushed for 168 yards and a touchdown. He caught two touchdown passes from Clement and had four catches for 87 yards, including a 74-yard touchdown.

Rocco Williams had an interception while Luke Dunham had eight tackles for the Tecumseh defense.

FLINT KEARSLEY 35, ADRIAN 28 

FLINT — The Maples thought they had a possible game-tying touchdown in the fourth quarter, but it was called back for a penalty and Adrian lost its second straight game.

“We thought we scored,” Adrian coach Joel Przygodski said. “A holding call negated the score, and we didn’t get it done as we threw an incompletion in the end zone as time expired.”

Sean Parker threw for 279 yards and four touchdowns. Thomas Dayharsh had three of those touchdown catches and had 182 yards receiving. The Maples had 101 yards rushing as a team.

Adrian finishes the regular season at 6-3 and will be heading to the playoffs in back-to-back seasons.

HILLSDALE 48, ONSTED 42 

HILLSDALE — Hunter Kelley passed for 319 yards and four touchdowns, but it wasn’t enough as the Hornets held off the Wildcats.

Onsted (2-7, 1-6 LCAA) had 474 yards of offense. Quinn Hiram had six catches for 129 yards and three touchdowns. Aidan Paquin had six catches for 68 yards.

HOLGATE 30, MORENCI 22 

MORENCI — Michael Rising rushed for 171 yards and Skyler Trent rushed for two touchdowns but the Bulldogs closed the season 2-6.

Talan Kruse scored the other touchdown for Morenci.

Shamus Alcock passed for 87 yards.

TOLEDO CHRISTIAN 44, BRITTON DEERFIELD 14

BRITTON — Colin Johnson found the end zone twice, but it wasn't enough as the Patriots finished the season 2-7.

Johnson punched their first touchdown in with 6:59 left in the third to make it 38-8 before catching a pass late in the fourth from Keegan Bush for the other score.

SATURDAY

ADDISON 24, NAPOLEON 0

NAPOLEON — Addison knew it was the underdog Saturday.

Playing in the first Cascades Conference championship game and facing undefeated Napoleon, however, the Panthers showed who the best team in the league was with a convincing win.

“It feels amazing,” Panthers quarterback Jaxen Sword said. “Everybody doubted us. No one believed in us. Everyone said, ‘They’re not going to beat a team from the East, that’s the tougher division.’ We came out, stayed humble and we won.”

Addison came into the game as the West Division champ while the home Pirates won the East Division. Both teams were ranked in the top 10 and undefeated.

The Panthers wrote a perfect script, however, controlling the line of scrimmage and clock. They led 8-0 at halftime and put together two long scoring drives in the second half while its defense was pitching a shutout.

Spencer Brown scored all three touchdowns for the Panthers.

“Our line did a great job today,” Brown said. “They kept pushing and opened up some big holes for us.”

Brown finished with 104 yards on a season-high 24 carries. One of his touchdowns came on a fourth-down run.

“My goal was to get downhill, but I saw them crash in so I bounced and was able to get some yards,” Brown said.

Brown said the Panthers had something to prove Saturday.

“It’s huge,” Brown said. “Everybody doubted us. We came back and showed people the type of team we have.”

The Panthers rushed for 263 yards on 62 carries. They had the ball just three times in the first half and three times in the second half.

“If we wrote a script, it would be us shutting them out, us controlling the clock and putting long drives together,” Addison coach Joshua Lindeman said. “We did that almost to a T. That’s a good football team that we played. They are defensively sound and physical.”

Byron Creech had 66 yards on 17 carries and Sword had 65 yards on 11 carries.

Sword said the Panthers embraced the rainy conditions and credited the Addison offensive line with helping control the clock.

“The weather made it tough to get stops, but we focused on ball security,” Sword said. “It was a hard game. We stayed focused. When you run the T that is what you have to do – you run the ball a lot, run the clock down and run off some long drives.”

The Addison defense was stout. It held Napoleon to 80 yards rushing and 81 passing. Napoleon quarterback Grant Bradley was 3-for-12 passing.

“I was impressed with our kids and how physical of a game we played,” Lindeman said.

LENAWEE CHRISTIAN 48, KINGSTON 28

KINGSTON — The Cougars faced their toughest challenge of the season as they took on Division 1 8-man sixth-ranked Kingston.

It was the first time all season LCS didn't trigger the running clock as it completed its third undefeated regular season in four years of 8-man football.

The Cougars will have home field advantage throughout the playoffs with the most playoff points in Division 2 8-man.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Clinton blanks rival Hudson to win LCAA title outright