Harrison football battles tough, falls to Shelby in district championship

By BEN MURPHY

Cleaver Sports Writer

For a good portion of the night, the Harrison football team was right in the thick of things during their Division 7 championship game at home against Shelby on Friday. The Hornets couldn’t quite find its offense in the second half though, and eventually lost to the Tigers, coming up short, 30-16.

“We were excited about being in the district championship, we thought we had a good shot,” head coach Jamie Lipovsky said. “We struggled in the first quarter, they scored some long touchdowns but I thought our kids battled back, we took the lead but they scored a couple minutes before the half on a long run and that was just the way things rolled.”

Shelby led the game 22-16 after two quarters of play; and they stymied the Hornet offense in the final two frames and put up one more touchdown as the chilly, windy night played out.

“The second half they scored one time, and we just struggled moving the ball,” Lipovsky said. “It definitely wasn’t our best game, but hats off to them, they had a good game plan and executed it better than what we did with our game plan.”

Shelby put up two touchdowns in the first quarter, converting on long scoring plays each time, giving themselves a 14-0 lead with 4:06 to play in the first quarter.

Early in the second quarter, the Hornets were forced to punt the ball away on fourth down; but that’s when the first break of the game went their way. The line drive punt deflected off a Shelby player, and the Hornets alertly jumped on the ball, allowing them to retain possession, just 15 yards away from the endzone.

Ray Cosgrove ran the next play nine yards to the six-yard line and one play later, Clayten Austin gave the Hornets their first points. Austin took the handoff, reached the three-yard line untouched, then bulled his way through a host of would-be tacklers for the final three yards and into the endzone. Matt Latunski completed a pass to Cosgrove on the ensuing two-pointer to bring them within 14-8.

Harrison forced a punt on Shelby’s next possession, which gave the Hornets the ball on their own 29-yard line. The Hornets were able to drive the 71 yards for the touchdown, capping the series off with a short touchdown run by Latunski on a quarterback keeper. Cosgrove ran in the two-pointer and Harrison had a 16-14 advantage with 4:11 left to play before the half.

While the Hornets fell behind early on, Lipovsky really liked seeing the fight in his team to take the lead and get the momentum on their side in the process.

“We have some great kids and they are good ball players, we got down by a couple and knew that it was time to respond,” he said. “Our kids responded and we scored and we stopped them, got the ball back and scored again and took the lead and we thought, alright we switched the momentum, now we are solid, here we roll.”

The Tigers though were able to score on a 49-yard touchdown run just before the half, giving them the 22-16 edge at the break. Their only score in the second half came on a 99-yard drive, which they finished off on a four-yard touchdown run.

“They busted off a long play and scored (before the half) and it was like ‘shoot’, they took the momentum back from us,’ Lipovsky said. “That’s football, that’s what happens, it’s a game of momentum. They were just the fortunate ones that got the momentum, and we could never get it back at that point.”

The Hornets were led on offense by Aiden Brewer, who rushed 15 times for 74 yards. Cosgrove rushed nine times for 48 yards while Latunski rushed seven times for 42 yards and one touchdown. Austin carried the ball eight times for 28 yards and one touchdown, Hunter Lafeve ran once for a 27-yard gain and Collin Dennis rushed six times for 15 yards. Latunski also completed one pass to Dennis for 23 yards.

As for the defense, Alex Jansen had 12 tackles and one sack, Lafeve had seven tackles and one sack, Gavin Vanburen added six tackles and one sack while Brewer (two sacks), Cosgrove and Dennis all had four tackles apiece. Kelton Carlstrom and Alex Erskine both had three tackles as well and Latunski tracked down two tackles.

“I thought my seniors played their hearts out, they knew it was going to be their last home game regardless of if we won or lost,” Lipovsky said. “They work super hard and were upset afterwards. That tells me as a coach that this season meant something to them, and my juniors were visibly upset as well. It was nice to see how important it was to them, I have coached teams where they were happy it was over and this team was not that way, they were disappointed that it was over and those teams are great to coach.”

Harrison finishes the season 8-3 overall, which includes finishing second in the Jack Pine Conference Division 2 and their first post-season victory since 2020.

“8-3 is a good season, you win a game in the playoffs and finish second in the conference, Meridian was tough, but we beat some pretty tough teams and some of their records didn’t indicate they were really tough, but they were some top-quality teams,” Lipovsky said. “Beaverton was good, Pinconning was good, Farwell was young like us and loaded with players. The conference was pretty strong, so we were definitely happy going 7-2 in the regular season and getting that playoff win.”

The Hornets will lose some key players on the line to graduation, but the good news for the program is that the majority of their skill players will be back; giving them a core group of players returning that have already made an impact at the varsity level.

“I think the kids we have coming back are great athletes,” Lipovsky said. “We are losing three offensive linemen, those three kids play the defense as well, but everyone else is back. We are returning eight starters on each side of the ball and a whole bunch of key subs that came into the games. We should have a lot of experience, and the off season starts now, we’ve already started. Now it is a matter of how much time and effort are they going to put into getting themselves ready.”