By TOM NYHUIS
Niles Daily Star

EAST LANSING – The mid-summer football classic at Spartan Stadium on the campus of Michigan State University Saturday gave spectators an opportunity to watch the state’s best of the best football players as the former high school players came together for the East-West All-Star Football Game. The team’s featured players that graduated in 2009.
In the end it was the West over the East 43-22, in the 29th Annual Michigan High School Football All-Star Game presented by the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association.
Buchanan High School’s Clinton Orr is was one of three area representative at the All-Star Game. Lakeshore’s Trace Schewe and St. Joseph’s Matt Mattox also represented Southwest Michigan on the West squad.
Orr, a running back for the Bucks during his high school career, saw his action at wide receiver on Saturday. Orr had one catch and ran the ball to the 4-yard line before being brought down short of the end zone.
“That was on an arrow pass,” Orr said. “The quarterback got a little scrambling going. I went up and grabbed it and tried to get in but there were a couple of people there to make the stop.”
Orr has accomplished in two years and one game what many running backs find hard to do in four seasons on the gridiron. In his first varsity level run as a freshman he took the ball 64 yards for a score. People knew at that point the Bucks had a special player and had high expectation for him in the coming years. In his sophomore year he rushed for 1,341 yards and put the ball in the end zone 21 time on 116 carries.
In his junior year, which also proved to be his final season with the Bucks, Orr carried the ball 125 times for 1,560 yards and scored 24 touchdown. Orr graduated high school in only three years.
In his short football career with the Bucks Clinton scored a touchdown on his first carry in all four of the playoff games he competed in and finished with 45 touchdowns on 241 carries and racked up 2,901 total yards. He was also named to the Lakeland All Conference running back 2nd team in 2007, all conference running back 1st team in 2008 and was also selected to the second team all conference as defensive back in 2008. Orr was also All-State running back Special Mention in 2008.
The 5-foot-11, 175 pound Orr who will be heading to Albion College in the fall and says that he’ll play either running back or wide receiver in the fall at Albion College.
“This is a real honor coming from a small school and not being noticed that much. Getting the chance to learn from the other players and learning a lot from the older people from the bigger schools. It was great to be around a bunch of guys who actually take responsibility of doing their job and do that,” Orr said.
The 43 points were the most scored by the West since a 45-14 win in 2004, which was the highest- scoring game since the contest began in 1981.
A 34-9 West lead after three quarters was cut to 34-22 with less than 10 minutes left, but a West safety and an interception by Kenowa Hills defensive back Kurt VanEssen with less than eight minutes left sealed the win.