Southfield’s Varsity Football team suffered a tough playoff loss at the hands of De La Salle High School, with a bruising final score 31-7 on Nov. 22.
After defeating Southfield, De La Salle went on to become Division 2 state champions by defeating Muskegon Mona Shores on Nov. 28.
Yet Blue Jay teammates said it was still a great season for the team, which finished the season with a 10-4 record, made it all the way to the state semi-finals and fell one game short of making school history by making it to the finals at Ford Field.
In their 63 years of existence, the Blue Jays have never appeared in the state finals.
What they did do this year was to win league, district and regional champions under Coach Tim Conley. The team has not received a regional championship title since 2008., which was another year that De La Salle edged Southfield High out of the state finals.
Conley said the game against De La Salle this year had its difficulties. “They (De La Salle) definitely won the field positioning battle. Every time we started our drive, we were deep into our own territory, making it hard to get our backs off the wall.”
Conley goes on to say, “Although we lost, this team accomplished more than any other team I’ve ever coached. They are going to have a really nice legacy at Southfield.”
Senior Dior Johnson, wide receiver and defensive back, is getting over the tough loss by saying, “In my opinion, this is the best lineup of guys to come through this school. The team has 13 players with scholarship offers, and they keep rolling in day by day.”
Johnson admits, “We got beat bad; they took it to us, and we just began to give up after the second half.”
That wasn’t the only difficulty Southfield had to deal with throughout the game. De La Salle had some big punt blocks that gave huge momentum swings. These bursts of momentum helped De La Salle be the first team on the scoreboard, helped them achieve a field goal and two touchdowns early in the game, making it 17-0 in the first half.
De La Salle High school didn’t hold anything back, giving Southfield fans the blues. Their tricky quarterback – running back play was movie quality. The quarterback would give the ball off to the running back, and just as spectators thought the running back was going to run with the ball, he would step back and chuck that ball down the field to the quarterback for a surprise touchdown.
During the fourth quarter, senior tailback Adrian Carter scored Southfield’s only touchdown in the game.
Senior Kristopher Mangum, center for the Blue Jays, said, “We made multiple mistakes.” Namely, Mangum said, the Blue Jays did not execute good defensive blocking for the running back or good hustle to extend plays.
Mangum says he hasn’t quite accepted yet that this was his last football game as a Blue Jay. “It feels good even though we lost because we did the best we could and had a hell of a season.”
It’s time for Mangum and the rest of the Blue Jays team to put down their helmets and pads and turn in their jerseys. Reflecting on his team, Coach Conley said, “There’s a lot of leadership and maturity on this team. I hope they carry it over in the classrooms, different sports and as young men.”