We are honoring the best Defensive Player in the Downriver League for the second year. This year, the honor goes to Trenton’s Ansel Fater. Fater had a phenomenal senior year for the Trenton Trojans, racking up 116 tackles and two sacks. He also recovered two fumbles this season.
This play doesn’t come out of nowhere, as he put up similar numbers last year. Being able to put up almost identical numbers in back-to-back seasons is an impressive feat, and being able to do that, according to Fater, was how much they pushed the weight room in the off-season and during their summer workouts, saying, “just having all your teammates around you working out, it’s really encouraging.”
As one of the team’s best pass rushers and one of their better coverage guys, he’s taking on two separate roles in the defense, and that means he has to prepare for both roles. Fater said that it falls on his coaches to make sure he has his strength training down and hitting different muscle groups daily. He said they also threw in agility drills to ensure they were always on their toes. For Fater, that all helped him, but also going up against his teammate Ashton Rooney in practice each day was helpful for him, saying, “We’re both competitors, so being able to go at each day made a huge difference for the whole team and me especially.”
While Fater didn’t play on offense this year, he had a special moment when he scored a touchdown. “I just played the play and ended up in the end zone,” he said. He went on to say, “I was kind of surprised, but it turns up the guys, and it’s fun.”
One thing that is common for all of our award winners is that they have all been multi-sport athletes, and that is no different with Fater. He also plays basketball for Trenton, and he said that playing basketball helped him with the physical aspect and being able to run things down, saying, “Basketball is such a conditioned sport.” He would go on to say, “You have to be running at all times, and if they break one like in football, it’s live another day.”
Fater says winning the award means a lot to him, especially since it’s the second time the award has been given out. Fater said, “I’m super honored,” when talking about the award. He would continue by saying, “I came into the season with this as a goal of mine, and being able to achieve that feels great.” Not only did Fater win the Defensive Player of the Year Award, but his teammate Ashton Rooney won the MVP award, which is the first time teammates won the two awards we hand out. He said, “It feels great.” He continued by saying, “Being able to see both of us put in that work in the off-season, and it pays off for both of us, I’m glad.”
As his high school football career drew to an end, he said one of the things he’s going to take away from his time is not to worry about the things he can’t control, and along those lines, his Trenton team started 0-2 on the season, and they made it to the playoffs. Fater said on the trials through the season, “We had some people drop off the team, and you know that’s something we can’t control.” When they hit that 0-2 mark, people looked elsewhere and kinda wrote Trenton off, but as Fater said, “I think most of us knew the potential this team had and that we could be,” so really, it became do or die at that point, and they did. They were able to knock off Carlson and Allen Park in back-to-back weeks, and that, according to Fater, was because they just turned up the energy and focused more, which allowed them to go on that run.
Winning the award takes the support of fans and coaches voting for a player. To the people who voted for him, Fater said, “I want to thank everybody that helped me get to the position I’m in today. ” He also wanted to thank his coaches for pushing him and his family for forever supporting him.