Harrison football team had memorable season

By BEN MURPHY

Cleaver Sports Writer

The Harrison football team had a solid eight wins this year. Ask Hornet head coach Jamie Lipovksy what his favorite moment was this fall, that seems to be their opening round playoff win over Morley Stanwood. After all that was a pretty significant win for the program.

“Winning the playoff game at home was awesome,” he said. “We haven’t done that in many years.”

As for why the season was so good, the veteran coach believed it all started with the players.

“The kids were dedicated to each other and that helps them push hard to win,” Lipovsky said.

And win they did. First was a 30-24 victory over Pine River to begin the year. The second week saw a 62-0 thrashing over White Cloud. They had a 20-6 loss to Meridian in week three, but they strung together five straight wins after that; topping Beaverton 36-20, defeating St. Louis 52-32, taking down Pinconning 24-14 and they also defeated Farwell in that stretch, 38-22. They fell to Gladwin 63-30 in their Jack Pine Conference crossover game, but they wrapped up the regular season with a 58-14 win over Evart.

In the first round of the playoffs they dominated Morley Standwood, 36-8. Their season ended with a tough loss to Shelby in the Division 7 district championship, 30-16; the Hornets led 16-14 in the second quarter but were unable to keep up with the Tigers as the night played out.

“We were happy with eight wins but disappointed on how it ended,” Lipovsky said. “We felt going in and even during the game that we could have won that district.  A few things didn't go our way but it should be fuel to return to that same position next year.”

As for next year, the Hornets will have to replace the graduation of five seniors, but they do return a whole host of players who played in key roles this year and expect to do much of the same, if not more next fall.

“They are all great kids with tremendous amounts of talent,” Lipovsky said. “They will be missed. We return eight starters on offense and nine on defense.  We also return all key backups and have a good crop of junior varsity players coming up to varsity next season.  Most of the kids have moved to basketball season, but you can tell they are itching to get back onto the football field.”

To take things one step even further, Lipovsky feels his group just needs to stay committed to the weight room and off-season plan.

“We have got to get stronger,” head said. “We faced some tough teams during the season and three we lost to were more physical than we were.  We must get better.”