Youth is being served in prep backfields across the county this postseason as a number of underclassmen running backs have been integral parts of their team's current playoff runs.

Getting the call up to varsity late in the year, Farmington Hills Harrison freshman running back Lorenzo Collins has been impressive toting the ball for the Hawks. In both wins this postseason for Harrison, he has contributed touchdown runs, including a 28-yard score in last week's 37-27 win over Brother Rice and the game-securing trip into the end zone in the team's 28-13 defeat of Berkley on Saturday.

Part of the reason why Novi Detroit Catholic Central is riding a three-game win streak and has been able to rebound from a late regular season losing skid has been the play of the sophomore tailback tandem of Anthony Darkangelo and Wyatt Shallman. Darkangelo has been getting a lot of carries all season long, while Shallman has just recently worked himself into the ball-carrying rotation for the Shamrocks by putting together a string of opportunistic outputs. In Catholic Central's 37-0 win against Detroit Cody in the regular season finale, Shallman ran for 105 yards and three touchdowns on only eight carries. He scored a pair of touchdowns in the Shamrocks 42-6 defeat of Detroit Mumford in the first round of the playoffs last week and scored another on a long run in the second half of the team's 35-10 throttling of Northville on Saturday in a Division 1 district final.  Running for two touchdowns and a game-high 100 yards, Darkangelo led Catholic Central's rushing attack against Northville.

Sophomore Grant Niemiec is Orchard Lake St. Mary's leading rusher this season and his bruising style of running is a major reason why the Eaglets won a share of the Catholic High School League title in the regular season and took home a Division 3 district trophy over the weekend. He scored on a 12-yard touchdown run last week in a playoff-opening win against Lapeer East and then ran for 120 yards and two touchdowns in St. Mary's 71-44 victory over Avondale on Saturday. The Niemiec family got some added good news this fall when Grant's big sister got engaged at halftime of a recent Eaglets' game to an Eaglets assistant coach.

One other name to keep a look out for is Brian Walker, a freshman running back at Birmingham Brother Rice who scored over 25 TDs this season on the Warriors JV and will share feature back duties next season on varsity with junior-to- be Deshun Brown (not to mention do-everything senior-to-be slotback Devin Church) 

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