By Wendi Reardon Price
Clarkston News Sports Writer
Independence Township — Senior Ethan Clark sprayed water on new Clarkston Varsity Football Head Coach Justin Pintar after the Wolves’ 62-56 win over Southfield Arts & Technology last Thursday, Sept. 1.
“It was a battle,” said Pintar. “Both teams competed. I thought that was as good as it gets for a high school football game. Not the way we want to do it on defense, but when we needed stops, we got stops.”
One big stop was by junior Desman Stephens as he intercepted Southfield’s throw into the end zone with six seconds left in the game. It was his second interception of the night.
“I was proud of them either it was a 2-point conversion we needed to stop or the play at the end by Des,” Pintar said. “I am proud of our effort. We competed the entire game and that’s all you can ask these guys.”
Seconds earlier, the Wolves had broken the 56-56 tie with a 6-yard touchdown from senior quarterback Michael Hein. The PAT was blocked.
Clarkston opened the night with a 12-yard touchdown run from Clark three minutes into the game with a PAT from Eddie Langton.
Southfield took the lead halfway through the first quarter scoring on a 1-yard touchdown run and a 2-point conversion.
The first quarter ended with a 14-14 tie after Clarkston scored on a 20-yard touchdown from senior Cole Church and PAT from Langton.
Southfield scored on a 1-yard touchdown with 13 seconds left in the quarter. Senior Wolf Cavanaugh Diton broke up the 2-point conversion.

The Wolves struck back with a 25-yard touchdown run from Clark less than three minutes into the second quarter. Senior Kohl Jarvis scored on a 21-yard touchdown run with 5:22 left in the half.
“One of our coaches says ‘good play, bad play, next play,’” said Pintar, about the Wolves coming back from the tie. “I thought we did that. We had some bad plays, and they got back into the game. We give up the lead. Then, we bounce right back and get a touchdown later. Battle through adversity – those all the life lessons we talk about in football all the time. To see the guys fight through adversity and come out with a victory I couldn’t be prouder.”
The first half closed with a 42-30 lead for the Wolves as Stephens scored on a 63-yard touchdown run with 2:21 left on the clock; and a 3-yard touchdown pass to Diton in the end zone with 22.6 seconds left.
Clark scored twice in the third quarter with a 9-yard touchdown run, with 7:39 left in the quarter; and a 19-yard touchdown run two minutes later, ending the quarter, 56-38.
Southfield closed in, scoring three touchdowns to tie the game, 56-56.
“We don’t want to give up that many points, but that’s a great offense,” Pintar said, adding it’s a first win he won’t forget. “We told our guys they are going to score some points. We didn’t know it would take 62 points to beat them.”
He added it was a good bounce back from the loss against Davison in the season opener.
“It was a close game. When watched film, we left a lot out there. We left a lot of plays we could have made. We made a lot of mistakes that we could have cleaned up,” Pintar said. “We knew Southfield was coming off a good win against Cass Tech. We knew they were going to be a battle. It doesn’t get any easier next week or the week after that. We will enjoy it for 24 hours and then get right back to it.”
Clarkston Varsity Football, alumni, fans and community honored Kurt Richardson, who recently retired from over three decades as head coach, before the game, which included former players and former coaches coming out onto the field with Richardson.
“We told the guys there would be a lot of guys out here who built the foundation for Clarkston Football,” Pintar said. “We wanted to honor them. We want to let them know Clarkston Football is still here. We aren’t going anywhere. We wanted to make sure we honored KR by playing hard. I told them I wasn’t worried about the score. I wanted them to play hard.”
The Wolves head to Rochester Adams this Friday for a OAA Red League game. Kick off is 7:30 p.m.

  Clarkston Varsity Football, Football