The Saline Reporter
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
2006: A Look Back
Titles highlight top 5 stories
By Jerry Hinnen, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: January 4, 2007
1. Hail to the Champions
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Entering 2006, Saline High School had never won a state championship in a boys' sport.
By the end of the year, the Hornets had won two.
The boys' track team and boys' golf team each brought home a Michigan High School Athletic Association Division 1 state title to Saline, the track team's coming at the June 3 state meet in East Kentwood and the golf team's at the state tournament at Eagle Crest in Ypsilanti Oct. 21
The championships were the first for Saline since the girls' golf team won back-to-back Michigan High School Athletic Association Class B-C-D titles in 1990 and '91, and the first in MHSAA's Division 1.
The two teams were similar in that neither one relied on a single star performer, but there was major difference in how the teams were perceived entering their state finals.
The track team had finished second to heavy pre-meet favorite Ann Arbor Pioneer at both the Southeastern Conference meet and the regional meet just the week before. Afterward, head coach Brian Boze admitted that his team hadn't expected anything better than second.
But Pioneer crashed to fourth place and the Hornets were ready to take advantage. Junior Vince Helmuth picked up 20 points for Saline by winning his second straight discus title and his first title in shot put. Eric Williams grabbed fourth in the long jump and Tyler Patterson was fifth in the 800 meters. The quartet of Branden Post, Sam Burchyett, Chris King and Williams finished fourth in the 400 relay and seventh in the 800 relay.
Add in a fifth-place performance from the 3,200 relay team of David Mirabella, Tyler Patterson, Kyle Zill and Nick George, and Saline had the 39.5 points it would need to edge runner-up Portage Central for a surprising victory.
"It's a great feeling, one that I wasn't sure that I would ever have the chance to experience," Boze said.
After her Hornets finished as state runners-up two of the three past seasons, boys' golf coach Carol Melcher may not have had similar doubts. And, if so, she likely had even fewer after a 2006 regular season that saw the foursome of senior Spencer Slade, senior Johnny Kozlowski, junior Matt Paterini and sophomore Phil Gieseker lead the Hornet team to a victory in every single tournament and every single dual meet in which they competed.
The top-ranked and heavily favored Hornets had a minor hiccup on Day 1 of the two-day finals, finishing the round two strokes behind Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central. But the Hornets rebounded to crush the field on Day 2 and finish 23 strokes ahead of second-place Birmingham Brother Rice, far and away the widest margin of victory since the divisional split in 1998.
"We got it done," Slade said. "We showed the ability to bounce back and we all played fantastic today. I can't think of a better finish."
2. Football raises the bar
Before his team's district championship game against Ann Arbor Pioneer, Saline head football coach Mike Glennie said his team had had enough of walking by the Saline High trophy case and seeing dozens of trophies, and not one put there themselves.
Consider that problem solved. Saline comprehensively defeated the Pioneers 27-14, becoming the first Hornet team to ever win a district championship and the first in school history to advance past their second playoff game.
"They have left a significant mark," Glennie said of the class of 2006 after the season. "They took the dreams that teams in the past have had and made them a reality … They raised the bar."
Although the Saline defense made any number of critical stops throughout the season, the Hornets' greatest strength was its offensive balance. With All-State running back Vince Helmuth rushing for 1,536 yards, quarterback Kyle Brown throwing for 1,708, and halfbacks Mike Adler and Austin Trott combining for 1,541 yards from scrimmage, few defenses were able to shut down all of Saline's weapons. The team went on to score 448 points, a school record.
The Hornet run came to an end in the regional final against Canton, but not before Saline had defeated rival Pioneer twice, edged Chelsea in an epic battle of 5-0 teams, won an SEC title, and earned the school's first-ever home playoff games.
In other words, the bar had been raised.
Hockey makes its mark
The Saline hockey program had only been in existence for five seasons when it took on top-ranked Trenton in a Division 2 state semifinal March 9.
But the Hornets showed that, perhaps, experience is overrated. After losing a 2-1 lead with fewer than 13 seconds to play and nearly four overtimes' worth of unbearable tension, Saline got a stunning Brad Kerch goal to win the game 3-2 and advance to the state finals against Traverse City Central.
The drained Hornets were unable to finish off their run with a state title, falling 2-1 to Central. And Drew Denzin's team has struggled to replace departed playmakers and goalie Brandon Stephenson in the new season.
But Saline's long list of accomplishments in the 2005-2006 season — an undefeated year in SEC play, an SEC title, a second straight regional crown, the runner-up trophy — had already stamped them as a program to watch in the future.
"It has been an amazing year," Denzin said.
Future is now for cross country
One would think that varsity records set by Eileen Creutz, who graduated in 2006 as Saline's best-ever cross country runner and a two-time state champion, would stand for quite a few years.
One would be wrong. Not one but two Saline freshman — Alex Leptich and Kate Carter — broke Creutz's first-year mark of 18:47 on their way to leading the Hornets to a program-record fourth-place finish at the state meet in Brooklyn Nov. 4.
Leptich's state meet time of 18:14 was good for eighth overall and was the top time turned in by a freshman at the meet. The fifth-best? Carter's 18:30, good for 22nd place.
But as tantalizing a thought as the future with the state's best pair of freshman might be, Saline's cross country program has plenty more going for it. Only one of the seven runners for the girls' team will graduate.
On the boys' side, Saline made up for a brief absence from state competition by finishing sixth, with each of their top four runners (sophomores Tommy Hunt and Brian Conn, freshman Andrew Harper, and junior Blake Johnson) returning for 2007.
On to Michigan
The bad news for Saline fans is that 2006 saw the departures of two of the school's most decorated athletes ever. The good news for Saline fans is they didn't depart very far.
All-State running back and two-time discus state champion –– and starting basketball center –– Vince Helmuth became the first member of the Wolverine football team's 2007 recruiting class when he committed in February. Helmuth will play fullback at the University of Michigan, a position adjustment he said was a factor in his December decision to forego his final season of track eligibility and enroll early at Michigan.
Eileen Creutz left Saline with every school cross country record in the book, back-to-back state cross country championships, and a host of accomplishments on the track as well. After citing a desire to stay close to home and committing to run for Michigan in March, Creutz helped the Wolverines to a third-place finish at this year's NCAA Championships.
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