No drop-off for Clarkston in Year 1 under Pintar
DEWITT » After a year of heartstopping finishes, the end wasn’t necessarily that.
The end for the Clarkston football team in last weekend’s semifinal was a frustrating slow burn, the inability to do what the Wolves had done so much this season — score.
With eight games settled by 11 points or fewer, and five onescore results, along with eight games where the Wolves, who averaged 40 points per game, and their opponents combined to score 62 points or more — twice going over 100 combined points — it was a bit jarring to end with a goose-egg.
But the end didn’t make it any less impressive of a run to get there — especially with a firstyear coach in Justin Pintar, taking over from a Hall of Famer in Kurt Richardson, who’d guided Clarkston to three state titles in four title-game appearances.
There certainly was no discernible drop-off, no lowering of standards for the program in Year One of Pintar’s administration, but he certainly made sure the credit for that was spread around.
“Honestly, there’s there’s so little that that I do relative to the whole team aspect — I mean, if not for the coaches, if not for the players, this thing doesn’t work. It’s really a credit to those guys — to all the assistant coaches, to
the parents all the things they do. That’s what makes this thing go. It’s not one guy,” Pintar said after season-ending loss to Caledonia. “I want to thank those guys because I think if not for the for the seniors especially but if not for those guys buying in and the coaches buying in and you know, the just the whole package, it doesn’t work the way it did this year.”
That buy-in was tested right out of the gate, with a 28-21 loss to Davison at the Big House, followed by a 62-56 win over Southfield A&T that took every ounce of the Wolves’ fiber to pull out. A split of road games against league title contenders — a 45-35 win over Rochester Adams and a 35-27 loss to West Bloomfield — followed by a threegame win streak, to finish off the Oakland Activities Association Red Division slate, punctuated by a 4541 survival against rival Lake Orion, left the Wolves with a three-way split of the league crown.
“They did buy in and when we started the year in lost right away to Davison, and then we knew you know, right after that the schedule wasn’t getting any easier,” Pintar said, pointing to the Week 2 win over A&T as a point of inflection. “You knew like this is one of those kind of turning points, right? Like this can go a number of different ways and they did, they bought in. Getting that win Week 2 again Southfield, I thought was really big for that buy in. But you know, a lot of the credit goes to the seniors — we’ve got a great group of seniors. Those guys you know, they’re great leaders — there’s a reason they had the success that they did this year.”
One of those seniors who had a huge impact was running back Ethan Clark, who had a monster final season in a Clarkston uniform.
A four-year starter and Princeton commit, Clark broke Ian Eriksen’s singleseason (2,662) and career (5,483) rushing records for the program, scoring 30 touchdowns as a senior to tie the school record with 64 career rushing scores.
The loss to Caledonia was a swan song for his illustrious career, too — and the one thing that got his coach to choke up a bit in the postgame interview.
“He’s just a great young man and he gives everything he has, every day in practice, never says ‘Boo,’ never complains. Just goes about his business. And you’re gonna miss any kid like that. I don’t care how good they are. You just miss kids like that, you know, I mean, we have we have guys on the team that don’t get on the field, but they have great attitudes they bring they bring energy every day in practice. And I’m gonna miss those kids just as much because they do so much for this program having guys like that on your team,” Pintar said. “So he is one of a kind when it comes to the talent and the other stuff, but just a great young man, great football player. And he’s gonna have a he’s gonna have a great college career.”
The Wolves graduate 26 seniors from this year’s 10-3 squad.