LESLIE, Mich. (WLNS) – The Leslie Blackhawks have won six games in a row to open the 2024 season and have already guaranteed they will finish with a winning record for the first time in 12 years.
The Blackhawks have scored 33 or more points in every game and earned wins over three of the toughest teams on their schedule in the last three weeks: Michigan Center, Manchester and Napoleon.
Leslie can clinch at least a share of the Cascades Conference East Division with a win on Friday against East Jackson.
It’s a remarkable rise for a program that hasn’t had a winning season since 2012.
Head coach Tim McCann is a Leslie alum and is in his second season leading the program. Leslie finished 4-5 under his guidance last year and has put it all together this fall.
“There’s a ton of pride involved with it,” McCann said of leading the program. “I want nothing but success for this program. I’ve never had an aspiration to coach anywhere else. I [still] don’t have any aspirations to go anywhere else. So this is it and to be able to have some success in this program that had such an impact on my life, I just hope to give back to it what it gave to me as I was growing up.”
Leslie has a “small but mighty” senior class, according to McCann, and a number of sophomores have also played big roles in the team’s success.
“We brought up a lot of young kids,” said senior standout Jayden Colby. “We’ve got a couple sophomores who are really good for our program, Joel Cranmore and Braydin Johnson, and we’ve got a lot of just athletes on the field at all times.”
The Blackhawks’ incredible start to the season has rallied the whole community, and the packed stands are a beautiful sight to see for McCann.
“The student section’s been great,” said McCann. “Those kids have been around even when we were 3-6 and 2-7. So for those kids to be able to experience us having success is awesome too. The last couple of years we’ve been able to get some of those moral victories of, you know, we’re making progress. Then this year we’re actually over that hump and we’re actually getting those victories on the field.”
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