ANN ARBOR – It was a tough day for Ann Arbor Huron’s football program on Friday.
Despite beating cross-town rival Ann Arbor Pioner 34-0, the River Rats were playing with heavy hearts after the loss of a member of their football family who passed away recently.
Huron’s head coach Antaiwn Mack declined to go into details on the loss, but said he was proud of the way the team played under the circumstances, especially against their rival.
“It’s been a tough day today,” Mack said after the game. “We had some things going on in our community and within our family – the loss of a brother, so the kids really wanted to come out and play hard.”
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A moment of silence was held prior to contest and although it was a difficult day for a game, the River Rats played spirited football to shutout the Pioneers for the first time since 2002.
“It was just the loss of a brother and the kids wanted to come out and just play hard for our brother and they came out and they did that,” Mack said after the game.
Huron was able to fight through the tragedy to beat Pioneer in back-to-back seasons since the 2002 campaign as well.
The River Rats came out with an edge from the opening kickoff and took a 10-0 lead into the second quarter thanks to a 36-yard field goal from Adam Samaha and an 18-yard touchdown from Dyson Sims to Davis Hugan.
Huron extended its lead by halftime to 24-0 with a 75-yard TD pass from Anthony Pinnace to Brandon Johnson and an interception return by Torrence Greene right before the end of the second quarter.
Pinnace found the end zone on an 11-yard scramble to start the third quarter and Samaha capped the scoring with a 35-yard field goal early in the fourth.
For Mack, he was impressed to see his team handle the difficulty of what transpired prior to the game as well as how they bounced back from last week’s loss to Saline.
“The kids felt, after reading the articles last week, that they were discredited like teams don’t respect us,” Mack said. “So, they wanted to come out tonight and really show what we were about and have an impressive showing.
“We still left some points on the board. The kids just felt disrespected by Pioneer and Saline, and different teams, and they just wanted to come out and redeem themselves and show what type of football team we really are.
“I’m definitely proud of the kids with how they fought after today and the things that happened within our football community and football family here, so the kids really showed up and played hard.”
For Pioneer, which fell to 0-2, it was the program’s first game since forfeiting last week’s contest against Temperance Bedford due to a racial incident that took place during the junior varsity game on Thursday, Sept. 2.
Pioneer coach Jimmy Williams said the Pioneers were simply defeated by a better team on Friday but was still glad to be back on the field.
“It was good to be back playing football,” Williams said. “That’s really the experience you want them to have. At the same time, it was a good learning experience for them as well, but good to be back playing football.”
The Pioneers haven’t had much success in the past two seasons and are on a 9-game losing streak.
Still, Williams said he’s confident his team has what it takes to turn the corner moving forward.
“We’ve got to get better in every capacity, starting with me,” he said. “We have every opportunity to as well, so we’ve got to go back to work.”
Pioneer will look to snap its losing streak against rival Ann Arbor Skyline, which is also carrying an 8-game losing streak into next week’s contest.
Huron moved to 2-1 on the year and will travel to Bedford looking for its best start to a season since 2002.
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