“This is my first year being in the state playoffs. He was our middle linebacker and fullback. “Losing him (Murphy) made us more determined as a team,” said Lewis. Murphy’s loss only strengthened the team’s resolve. A lot of us are (playing) both ways, but we keep our conditioning up at practice. “I knew we’d come together once everybody got situated,” said senior quarterback Raynard Lewis. That’s when I started to see things kind of materialize.”ĭenby gave up just seven points in its first three games, all victories, before losing to East English. “Up until we went to a four-way scrimmage we were working on getting things together. “It didn’t take a day or two,” said Blankenship. We had a lot of kids show up for 7-on-7 and we had that week off before two-a-days so we knew they needed to stay on a schedule even with family things going on.”īlankenship said it took the entire two-a-day practice sessions to get the team on track. “They weren’t used to the structure and accountability I wanted,” said Blankenship. We knew we had some circumstances to deal with.”ĭenby hadn’t had a winning season since 2009 (5-4), and the players didn’t connect with the previous coaching staff. We were going to coach them and coach them hard and prepare them and position them to win football games. “We stayed the course as far as what our focus was as a coaching staff. “I never really thought about that until you brought up,” said Blankenship. The school and community have rallied behind this improbable group and Blankenship may have turned in his best coaching job ever. It’s incredible! The roster still numbers under 30, but a couple of freshmen have joined the team. The defense allowed just 93 points in nine games, more than half that scored by King. Only PSL powers East English Village (22-0) and King (52-12) were able to beat the Tars.ĭenby even had the nerve to outscore its final two regular-season opponents (Central and Western), 88-0, on its way to the playoffs. In what could be best described as amazing, the Tars won seven of nine games and face Detroit Mumford (7-2) this week in the first round of the playoffs. I should have given him a couple of months. I originally gave Blankenship a couple of years to get this team up and running. In the first game of the season, he broke his leg and didn’t play again. He came back and was expected to be a leader. Shawn Murphy was one of the players on vacation with his family that Monday morning. I said OK, thinking this group probably would go 3-6 with some defections and maybe 4-5 if the Tars got a couple of breaks. “We had a pretty good turnout during the summer.” “We had a couple of guys on vacation with their families,” Blankenship said. He told me he’d make some calls between the first and second practices that day to check on some players who hadn’t shown up. I knew Blankenship was a great coach from his coaching stints at Detroit Southwestern and Muskegon Heights. What I saw were a couple of large offensive linemen struggling with running laps and Blankenship’s coaching staff imploring the group to forget about the rain and the low numbers and get ready to compete. On a muddy grass field with more mud than grass. No junior varsity less than 30 players trying to form a team to be competitive in the ultra tough Detroit Public School League East Division. When I arrived there were about 24 players or so - total. #Detroit free press high school basketball macCoach Mike Giannone runs a tight ship and he had reloaded from a year ago, so it’s no surprise the Cougars finished undefeated in the MAC Red and will host Warren De La Salle Friday night. On the first day of a rainy high school football practice back in August, I was assigned to write stories on Macomb Dakota, a two-time state Division 1 champion in 20, and Detroit Denby under first-year coach Tony Blankenship.ĭakota had about 100 players on its turf field.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |