DETROIT — After defeating notable opponent Detroit Martin Luther King, 23-7, in the Prep Bowl championship, Novi Detroit Catholic Central became the only Catholic League team to finish undefeated this fall.
But for the time being, the Shamrocks are treating that 9-0 mark like it’s a mirage.
“We’re 0 and 0 — it’s one game at a time now,” senior tailback Jaden Pydyn said.
That’s because the Shamrocks — as well as more than a dozen area Catholic schools — are gearing up for post-season play. Catholic Central will host Livonia Stevenson (5-4) in a first-round pre-district match-up this Friday, Nov. 1.
“I don’t care (who we play),” head coach Justin Cessante said. “It’s us vs. us. We just have to go back to work and get better.”
“Nothing is given to us — you’ve got to earn everything,” Pydyn said. “Obviously we’ve got the goal of a state championship, but you can’t look ahead of that. We did that last year, and it lost, it hurt. We’ve got that in the back of our minds; we’re not taking anything lightly.”
Catholic Central had its spot in the playoffs locked in by mid-season, yet the Shamrocks welcomed the challenge of playing for the city championship at Ford Field on Saturday — not just to achieve a goal of bringing the Prep Bowl trophy back to Novi, but to prepare for the upcoming challenges posed by the state tournament.
“We wanted to come out and treat this as a playoff game,” Cessante said. “We wanted to play really physical football, and I thought we did — especially in the first half — running the ball and establishing the line of scrimmage. We came out with energy that we needed in a game that meant something to us.”
Although neither team could score in the first quarter, Catholic Central broke things wide open during a three-minute span in the second quarter. After the Shamrock defense forced a Martin Luther King punt, which took a backward bounce and landed out-of-bounds, the offense only had to drive 48 yards, capped by Pydyn's 2-yard burst 1:27 into the period.
It took just 33 seconds for Catholic Central to double its lead, when Pydyn made a highlight-reel interception. He planted both feet in-bounds, headed up the right sideline, and cut back across the middle of the field to avoid tacklers. The play resulted in a 42-yard touchdown.
Catholic Central got the ball back in the red zone just two plays later on Lee Krueger’s fumble recovery. The Shamrocks threw an incomplete pass to start the possession, but kept the ball on the ground after that, giving the ball to Pydyn on three consecutive plays until he ran it in for a 5-yard score.
“It doesn’t matter who’s getting the touchdowns — our offense is electric,” Pydyn said. “You never know who’s going to score.”
The Shamrocks added a 35-yard field goal by Jake Matigan in the second half, and King avoided the goose-egg with 16 seconds to play on a 23-yard pass from Ronald Fleming Jr. to Damon Stennis.
“Our boys did good on defense. All the way up to the end we had a shutout against a team with so many athletes, so that’s impressive,” Cessante said.
“We preach our brick-wall defense — that’s our mentality,” Pydyn said. “We preach (causing) two-plus turnovers per game, and we got that; we preach our fourth-down stops. You can allow teams short yardage; you can’t give up any big plays.”
That effort earned the Shamrocks their first Prep Bowl trophy since 2020.
“It feels great; this is where it belongs. We deserve it,” said Pydyn, an Army commit. “I knew we could win because of that way we practiced this week. We practiced hard, we practiced intense, we went full pads yesterday as our pre-game, we knew we were going to get into a dogfight today.”
Playoff pairings announced
In addition to Catholic Central’s upcoming date with Stevenson, 17 other area Catholic and affiliated schools have qualified to play into the post-season. Here is a listing of first-round matchups, which take place at 7 p.m., Fri., Nov. 1 (unless noted):
Michigan Division 2
- Orchard Lake St. Mary’s (6-3) at North Farmington (6-3)
- Warren De La Salle (6-2) at Port Huron Northern (7-2)
Michigan Division 4
- Dearborn Divine Child (6-3) at Madison Heights Lamphere (8-1)
- St. Clair (6-3) at Macomb Lutheran North (8-1)
Michigan Division 5
- Williamston (3-6) at Pontiac Notre Dame Prep (7-1)
- Whitmore Lake (7-2) at Ann Arbor Fr. Gabriel Richard (5-4)
Michigan Division 6
- Dearborn Heights Robichaud (4-5) at Jackson Lumen Christi (8-1)
- Royal Oak Shrine (7-2) at Warren Michigan Collegiate (8-1) (2 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2 at Warren Lincoln)
Michigan Division 7
- Bath (5-4) at Grosse Pointe Woods University-Liggett (6-3) (1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2)
- Blissfield (4-5) at Monroe St. Mary Catholic Central (9-0)
Michigan Division 8
- Burton Bentley (5-4) at Clarkston Everest Collegiate (8-1)
- Allen Park Cabrini (5-4) at Riverview Gabriel Richard (7-1)
- Marine City Cardinal Mooney (4-5) at Rochester Hills Lutheran Northwest (6-3)
- Mount Clemens (6-3) at Detroit Loyola (3-6)
Ohio Division II
- Toledo St. Francis de Sales (7-3) at Avon Lake (6-4)
Ohio Division III
- Rocky River Lutheran West (2-8) at Toledo Central Catholic (9-1)
The Michigan state championship games will be held Nov. 29-30 at Ford Field in Detroit. The Ohio state finals will be held Dec. 5-7 at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton. Defending champions include Lumen Christi (Michigan’s Division 6) and Central Catholic (Ohio’s Division 3), while De La Salle was a finalist last year (Michigan’s Division 2).
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