SPORTSBEAT by Peter Jakey: Undefeated with no playoff game

“It’s too bad,” Fred Gryniewicz reminisced, thinking back to the 1974 Posen Viking football team that made school history with an undefeated 8-0 record, but was not able to challenge for a Class D state championship because it was the year before the playoff format was instituted. To this day, Gryniewicz still wonders how the Vikings would have done in the playoffs if they had started in 1974, and not the following year. Posen was ranked in the top four in Class D when the season ended.

“We never found out how far we could have gone,” said Bob Paschke, who played quarterback on the squad and earned league most valuable player honors. Both Gryniewicz and Paschke were seniors and weren’t able to play in the Vikings’ first-ever playoff game the following year, a blowout loss to Crystal Falls Forest Park, 67-0. For Gryniewicz, the thought of not getting to match the talents of the ’74 team against that of other Class D schools has left a void.

AND KNOWING the playoffs would start in ’75, especially after the Vikings wrapped up their first North Star League championship in eight years over football rival Atlanta, 30-8, makes it even more frustrating for some of the former players. The Vikings breezed through their eight-game schedule with ease. They started the season with back-to-back 22-0 shutouts against Cedarville and Mio. The defense didn’t allow a touchdown until week three against Arenac, and “we weren’t happy about it,” said Paschke. The Vikes proceeded to post back-to-back shutouts in week four and five against Hillman and Hale. The combined score of the two games was 102-0. “We played 100 percent as a unit,” said former coach Louis Ciarkowski. The coach attributed the tenacious play of the defense to solid team and “gang” tackling. “We took care of business,” said Gryniewicz. “We didn’t let up,” Paschke added.

IN ALL, the defense shut out five of the eight teams they played and allowed an astounding 20 points the entire season. That’s three touchdowns and one two-point conversion. The offense did its job as well, scoring an amazing 350 points that was only eclipsed by coach Glenn Budnick’s 2000 team that went 9-1 and racked up 391 points, the most in school history. All-state center Jeff Kendjorski led an offensive line that powered some incredible point totals. October 8, 1974, Posen posted its most lopsided victory in school history, and you won’t believe who it was against. The Vikings blasted Whittemore-Prescott, 70-0. That game was one week after crushing Au Gres 70-6. The only criticism coach Ciarkowski had to deflect was from the Whittemore-Prescott and Au Gres coaches, who thought Posen was running up the score to improve its state ranking.

TWO LOSSES may have motivated the players. When some of the seniors from the ’74 team were sophomores, they played in a 57-6 loss in the final game of the ’72 season against Inland Lakes. Gryniewicz said he remembers coming off the field, battered, bloody, and bruised. He said the players vowed “to never let it happen again.” The next season, while going for a league title with an undefeated NSL record, Posen lost to Atlanta in the final game of the regular season, 36-0. That loss made the players hungry for the rematch, and it can be said the other seven victories were warmups for the Atlanta game, which the Vikes avenged 30 years ago, Monday.

“It was a fun season,&#

8221; said Ciarkowski. Paschke remembers the games being easy compared to the practices. He said practicing against each other was the toughest part of the week, but again, it made them better. It’s unclear how much better the ’74 team could have been. We’ll never know.

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On my upcoming tournament journeys, I’ll miss seeing my old workmate Kerwin Kitzman, who passed away unexpectedly last Saturday. I worked with him at the Northern Radio Network for a number of years. A community-minded man with bigger heart than I’ll ever have, had a genuine love of sports.

He had to be the biggest Detroit Red Wings fan I have ever met. I remember the time he went to a Wings game and announcer Ken Kal invited him in the booth for an interview during one of the intermissions. I can’t ever remember him saying anything negative about an athlete or sports team, not even the Lions. He was the opposite of shock radio. Gone too soon, a man with a heart of gold, whom I never would have realized I would miss so much — until now.

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