Among the brotherhood on the gridiron, Shepherd High School capped off its 2026 regular season with a memorable Senior Night. Grayling, who entered the game 3-5, played Shepherd, who entered the game at 6-2, with playoff seeding implications and the BlueJays paid it off with a 21-7 victory.
With a 7-2 season record, interim head coach Owen Russel has led the BlueJays to a playoff berth with a good chance at a home game for the first round.
“I’ll take our guys over anybody right now, so we’re playing some good football,” Russel said. “We’ve got a lot of experience. You got 17 seniors. They’ve played a lot of ball. They’ve been on varsity for three years. We’re going to be a tough draw.”
Those 17 seniors took the field, getting pregame recognition with introductions alongside their families, as well as postgame recognition as they walked the length of the field with interlocked arms. It was actually the second Senior Night of the year, after the game against Standish-Sterling Central High School was cancelled.
“Seeing them go through the season altogether, it was just awesome, man,” Russel said. “We’ve seen a lot of growth from them. I coached them when they were ninth graders on the JV (junior varsity) team, so watching them go through four years, I’m proud of them. Super impressed by what they can do. Yeah, just overall proud.”
The whole night was an opportunity to bury the hatchet from the previous season, when the Vikings beat Shepherd.
“Grayling kind of knocked us out of the playoff chances last year, lost by a point,” he said. “But we knew coming in, we had to take care of business. We knew they were going to come to play. That was echoed all week long. I just said, ‘Hey, remember what happened up there last year? You guys have been through all the adversity right now, so let’s rise up and put them away and move on to week 10.'”
And the team rang the bell, churned by a pair of senior tailbacks, Ty Burns and Easton VanAlstine.
“It’s great to have senior-led running backs,” Russel said. “You can rely on either one, no matter who’s out there. They both have a chance to get us some yards. They’re different in their styles. Burns is more of an explosive back. VanAlstine, he’s bigger. He’s going to lay the wood on somebody, so that’s a nice little combo in the backfield.”
Burns scored every touchdown for his squad. The first was a 2-yard goal-line punch-in to get Shepherd on the board with 4:21 left in the second quarter.
After that, he showed off his long speed with a 39-yard dash to the end zone with 1:31 left in the first half. He ran in front of his pulling linemen, veering to a hole on the right side of his offensive line down the right sideline for his second touchdown of the game.
He topped that on the third touchdown with a straight shotgun dive cutting through the middle of the Grayling defense, blazing past everyone in his sight for a 59-yard plunge.
The BlueJays’ defense played a stout game, forcing multiple turnovers on downs, including one interception in the red zone.
With the score 15-0, the Vikings drove down to the goal line with just over nine minutes left in the fourth quarter, eager to make it a one-score game. Senior Charlie Robinson sacked quarterback Jaden Peters on third down, pushing the Vikings back to the 16, setting up a long fourth-and-goal.
On the very next play, instead of rushing the passer, Robinson dropped back into coverage and caught a wobbling pass for an interception just short of the end zone and returned it to the 9-yard line, which led to Burns’ third touchdown.
“We executed well,” Russel said. “We made our reads and just swarmed to the football. Set the edge, you know, had all 11 guys rally to the ball, making tackles.”
The lone score for Grayling happened on a fourth down, after head coach Michael Kososky took a timeout with 3:45 left in the contest. And he indeed dialed up a special play.
Vincenzo Frittelli, an offensive lineman, sprinted out from left tackle to receive a hook-and-ladder from Drake Gabriel and ran down the left sideline nearly 60 yards before being tackled into the end zone for the Vikings’ first and only touchdown of the night.
Shepherd then recovered the onside kick attempt and proceeded to run out the clock.
It likely won’t be the final game at home for the BlueJays’ seniors, as the team awaits the playoff seeding.
