By Dan Nilsen
Nobody outside of Lapeer County and the Flint Metro League thought Lapeer West High had a chance of winning a state football championship in 1995.
Despite their 9-0 record and four shutouts in the regular season, the Panthers weren’t deemed worthy of a spot in the Top 10 of the Associated Press polls.
Even after they knocked out Big Nine champion Kearsley 21-0 in the pre-regional game of the Class A playoffs, the Panthers were expected to lose every week on the playoff trail.
So it came as a shock on Nov. 24 when West beat second-ranked South Lyon 24-21 in a double-overtime thriller for the title at the Pontiac Silverdome. That stunning upset and the school’s first state championship in any sport has earned the 1995 Lapeer West football team induction into the Greater Flint Area Sports Hall of Fame.
“We were never supposed to win,” said Tim Phipps, an assistant coach in charge of the defensive line and tight ends. “We were underdogs every week and we told the kids that. It was nothing to them. They said we’ve been this way all year, we know what to expect.”
The Panthers knew better, for a variety of reasons. One, they were able to platoon their team — fielding 11 players on offense and 11 different players on defense — a rarity in high school football. The starters on both units were kept fresh throughout the game.
Secondly, they had outscored their nine regular-season opponents 287-39, sparked by a smothering defense that would tack on two more shutouts in the playoffs.
Senior defensive end Troy Cordes felt it started two years earlier on the junior varsity team, which Mike Hotchkiss coached to an undefeated season with just 11 players.
“Hotchkiss was a phenomenal team-builder. He could motivate and unify a team like no other,” Cordes said. “He came up our senior year to coach the linebackers.”
And they were all well-prepared each week by a detail-oriented Coach Jeff Putnam and his staff.
“Our No. 1 strategy was the hours and hours of watching film with ‘Put’ and (defensive coordinator) Mike Smith,” said Phipps. “They knew formations and tendencies of what the other team would do, sometimes before the other team knew what they were going to do.
“It helped to have a future NFL player in Kemp Rasmussen,” who went on to play five years in the pros, including a Super Bowl with the Carolina Panthers. “When you have him anchoring down one of your ends, that makes life a lot easier.”
West also caught a break in round two of the playoffs, when a snowstorm hit Saginaw and slowed the No. 1-ranked Trojans with several inches of snow. The Panthers prevailed 10-6, highlighted by a spectacular, touchdown-saving tackle by Nick Diamond.
“That was the play of the game,” Phipps said. “Nick Diamond was the outside linebacker on the far side of the field. A Saginaw kid broke loose down the opposite sideline, and he’s gone, off to the races.
“Nick was able to take the angle and run him down at the 10-yard line. We were able to regroup and stop them. If he doesn’t run him down, they score and we’re down at that point.
“For the rest of my coaching career I put kids through angle-pursuit drills and told them why.”
The Saginaw game also brought in sophomore Dan Dreyer, a junior varsity call-up who took over the tailback spot at halftime after senior Steve Wills tweaked his knee.
Dreyer continued at tailback in the semifinals, scoring on West’s first possession as the Panthers beat Grand Rapids Forest Hills Central 10-0. Wills was moved to fullback, where he became an effective lead blocker.
“Wills was a really good guy who didn’t show one ounce of jealousy,” said Dreyer. “He was a tough guy who would bury his head in there as an unglorified lineman in the game. That’s just the selfless nature of the team. We were a reflection of the Lapeer community.”
South Lyon rolled into the Silverdome on the heels of 40-0, 24-0 and 55-22 blowouts, along with a running back, Mike Watson, who had rushed for 1,518 yards in the regular season. Even the guys in the TV booth gave West little chance, although one of them did give a nod to the Panthers’ defense.
West gave South Lyon and a crowd of 22,761 a taste of that defense. The Panthers shut out the Lions in the first quarter and the entire second half. Watson set a Class A finals record with 30 carries but managed just 109 yards, a frustrating 3.6 per carry. South Lyon had only nine first downs for the game.
“We went through the whole season believing that if the other team got a first down, it was a failure,” said Cordes. “That’s how intense we played.”
South Lyon did score two touchdowns in the second quarter, but they came on a 67-yard punt return and a short, 20-yard drive after a muffed punt by West.
In between, Dreyer scored on a 12-yard run, capping a 4-play, 61-yard drive. He finished with a game-high 111 yards on 21 carries, much of it through the right side, where brothers Jeremie and Zak Montgomery and tight end Craig Moilanen consistently opened big holes.
A potential South Lyon score was averted in the third quarter, when Lee Freeland caught Watson from behind on a long run to save a touchdown. West held, and the Lions missed a field-goal try.
Still down 14-7 after a scoreless third quarter, West drove 80 yards in eight plays in the final four minutes of regulation to tie it. Senior quarterback Kevin Gay threw two long passes, to Mike Sink and Mike Milliken, to move the Panthers quickly to the South Lyon 17.
“‘Put’ was calling plays, but he also said to call whatever I wanted,” said Gay. “It was like drawing plays in the back yard. I told Sink, instead of going 10 yards on an out, go 20.”
Then, knowing the Lions were keying on Sink, Gay threw a deep post to Milliken, out of the reach of the safety. Another pass to Milliken picked up a first down on third-and-9 to the 7.
Two plays later, Dreyer ran around right end to the pylon. Moilanen took out two defenders on the play, blocking his man into another, which tangled up both of them as Dreyer raced by. Jason Lehotan’s extra point sent the game into overtime, tied 14-14.
South Lyon won the coin flip and chose to start on defense. West scored in two plays, as Gay hit Sink for 9 yards on a slant-in, then scored on a 1-yard sneak behind center Rusty Peller, who simply plowed his man into the end zone.
South Lyon tied it on a touchdown pass to force a second OT at 21-21.
Putnam consulted briefly with the referees, then put his defense on the field first. Tackles by Brian Moore on first down, Todd Barraco and Freeland on second down, and a leaping deflection of a pass in a back corner of the end zone by Luke Dye left South Lyon with fourth-and-goal at the 6.
At that moment, all those hours of film-watching paid off.
“They came out in a formation they hadn’t run all game,” said Phipps. “Immediately, our coaches were yelling, ‘the option!
the option! the option!’ We saw it before they even ran it.”
Sure enough, the South Lyon QB ran right and faked a hand-off but didn’t get far. Moore pulled him down behind the line and more Panthers finished him off as West shut down the Lions one last time.
Right away, Putnam sent in Lehotan for a 27-yard field-goal attempt. The sophomore kicker had barely made his three extra points in the game, the first one bouncing off the left upright and the other two sailing just inside. But the field goal was high and right down the middle.
Then the Panthers dog-piled on a field they were never supposed to reach.
“That was a true team effort, the biggest feeling of family you could have outside of your own,” said Gay. “The accountability, the work in summer, the weights, the 7-on-7 passing leagues. And being together.
“People raced home to celebrate. When we got there, the streets and restaurants had signs everywhere: ‘State Champs.’ It was crazy.”
A booklet published after the final game provided scores, statistics, standings, roster, etc. Perhaps the best summation of the entire season was a paragraph under the headline Team Honors:
“By unanimous decision, the 1995 Panther Football Team has decided not to award the traditional individual awards. We believe that all of our team members were most valuable, and
that in the true spirit of team and unselfish devotion to that team, we are satisfied to be remembered as the 1995 Lapeer West Metro League and State Champions.”
