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Braylon is LOCAL SPORTS EVERYDAY LIVE ONLINE THIS WEEK Heritage West
Games featured LIVE online this
Sports
in the house week will include the Dreads foot-
ball game at Adrian. ACEBOOK
NFL star Braylon
Edwards showed up in

SPORTS
Chelsea on Friday to
watch his brother play

DEXTER
for the Bulldogs.
PAGE 6B SECTION
September 9, 2010

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Dexter travels to Adrian for a big SEC showdown. www.heritage.com

Purple Dazed
Pioneer 42, Dexter 3
Pioneer knocks out Dexter in
Dreadnaughts’ home opener
By Terry Jacoby
Heritage Newspapers GAME DAY:
The Dexter football team saw the GOOD on Dexter (1-1) at Adrian (2-0)
Thursday night as opposed to the BAD they saw last
week in the opener. And it got UGLY. When: 7 p.m., tomorrow
Ann Arbor Pioneer, which lost a shootout in Week Where: Adrian HS
1 to powerhouse Detroit Cass Tech last week, appar- Dexter at a glance: The
ently still had plenty of firepower left over as the visi- Dreads opened the season
tors marched up and down the field and back to Ann with a convincing win at
Arbor with a 42-3 rout of Dexter. It was a disappointing Garden City and then were throttled by and impres-
Photo by evening for Dexter, which got a huge home crowd of sive Ann Arbor Pioneer team at home last week.
Jonathan Knight
support and came into the game feeling good about Dexter gave up too many big plays and could never
themselves. get the offense going against the Pioneers.
Dexter RB “We were ready to play and felt we had a good defen- Adrian at a glance: The Maples rallied for an
Sequoyah sive game plan and felt like we could move the ball on impressive 34-31 overtime victory at Saline. Adrian
Burke-Combs them offensively,” Dexter coach Tom Barbieri said. quarterback Sebastian Johnson was 18 of 24 pass-
turns the corner. “And we had a good week of practice but sometimes ing for 194 yards, two touchdowns and an intercep-
things happen.” tion in the win. Marrcell Grayer had 20 carries for
And those things happened before the Dreads knew 55 yards and a score while Ryan Dempsey finished
what hit them. with six catches for 93 yards.
Meet Noah On the sidelines “We broke down a couple times early in coverage
and they scored on some big plays and you could see The difference between Cass Tech and Dexter?
the air go out of our sails,” Barbieri said. “And one “Dexter doesn’t have a bunch of Division I college
thing led to another.” football players on the field,” Gold said. “Still, we
As in one touchdown led to another. couldn’t take them for granted and stressed all week
Pioneer coach Jeremy Gold obviously liked what he in practice that we couldn’t let down against them. I
saw from his football team. The Pioneers have scored thought we could pressure them on defense and that’s
DEXTER 84 points in their first two games. But unlike in the what we did. We played well.”
opener last Saturday, the defense played as well as the While the victory was nice and the Pioneers played
VIDEO: offense. exceptionally well, Gold believes his team can get bet-
Dexter’s Noah Hiser talks Cheerleaders and more from www.heritage.com “We came out and executed on both sides of the ball ter.
about the game and future. Thursday’s game. (Thursday night),” Gold said.
PLEASE SEE DREADS/5-B

Finding our voice

TJ Spencer’s PA announcing is part
of a team effort in the football booth
By Terry Jacoby
Heritage Newspapers
That voice. It’s as familiar as the maroon and gold
uniforms or the leaves changing colors or the hot
cup of coffee on a chilly autumn night. “First down,
Dexter!” “Tackle made by Sequoyah Burke-Combs.”
“The pass is intercepted by Dexter’s Noah Hiser.”
“Touchdown, Dreadnaughts!”
The voice echoes throughout the stadium. It’s
loud. Clear. Friendly.
They like to say the smell of football is in the air.
In Dexter, you could say the sound of football is in
the air. And the sound belongs to longtime public-
address announcer TJ Spencer.
“I began announcing Dexter JV football games
about 15 years ago when, well, there wasn’t anyone
there to do the job,” says Spencer, who is as humble
and friendly as he is good at what he does. “I enjoyed
it and when the varsity position opened, I was hon-
ored to be asked to move up.”
Spencer certainly enjoys what he does. You can
hear it in his voice. He has only missed one game in
10 years. That’s a lot of Friday nights in the press
box.
“I think the Dexter experience is a bit unique in
that we have a cooperative effort,” Spencer says.
“Our ‘team’ just sort of gels naturally. There’s a lot
of chatter in the press box, the sort that might make
a decent sitcom. And everyone knows that there’s an
upcoming event (a play from the line of scrimmage)
and each of us has a focus that will coalesce into a
component of the statistics sheet or the on-air call.
“Most often, it comes together pretty flawlessly.
Occasionally, there’s a little ad-libbing. Maybe some
dead air.”
But even the silence is part of what makes Announcer TJ Spencer along with fellow-announcer John Whitaker (back
right) and statisticians Sue and Frank Wadenstorer before Dexter’s home
PLEASE SEE VOICE/5-B opener last Thursday against Ann Arbor Pioneer.