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D3 Baseball Final: Ventures Victorious Again

June 16, 2012

BATTLE CREEK – Brett Sunde’s only official at bat of the Division 3 Final on Saturday came in the first inning.

But with one swing, Madison Heights Bishop Foley’s senior catcher got his team rolling on its second straight MHSAA championship.

The Western Michigan University signee and Oakland Athletics draft pick hit a two-run homer to give the Ventures an early lead, and scored again in the third inning after being hit by a pitch. He also walked twice and scored three runs total.

Senior centerfielder Luke Ortel also scored three runs and had three hits, and sophomore shortstop Garrett Schilling had two hits and two RBI as top-ranked Bishop Foley (38-3) added two runs in the third inning and four more in the sixth.

Lansing Catholic (31-7), unranked at the start of the tournament, got six hits from six batters. Junior Dillon Rush drove in the lone run, and also pitched the first five innings and the start of the sixth for the Cougars.

Senior Brian Bayliss got the win for Bishop Foley with eight strikeouts over seven innings. Click for a full box score.

PHOTO: Bishop Foley hitters share a congratulatory fist bump after one of their eight runs in Saturday’s Division 3 Final.

Erik O. Furseth

In Memoriam: Erik O. Furseth (1930-2022)

By Geoff Kimmerly
MHSAA.com senior editor

March 1, 2022

For 50 years, Erik O. Furseth’s voice chimed throughout MHSAA and Michigan State University athletic events. That voice surely will continue to live in the memories of the many who cherished listening to him, as he died Monday evening at the age of 91.

Furseth began as the public-address voice of MHSAA Boys Basketball Finals in 1968 and continued well into his 80s as those games moved from Jenison Field House to other locations across the Lower Peninsula and eventually settled into Breslin Center. He also was the longtime MHSAA football championship game voice going back to their days at the Pontiac Silverdome and provided the narration for MHSAA Baseball Finals for a decade. He announced his last MHSAA event in 2018.

An MSU basketball player during the early 1950s, the Cleveland Heights, Ohio, native played in the Spartans’ first Big Ten game in 1951. A forestry student initially, Furseth switched to communications. He later became a legendary rock-n-roll radio DJ in Lansing, and for a decade hosted Saturday night dances at the Lansing Civic Center that drew 1,000 teenagers a night – and a surprise performance by a young Stevie Wonder.

Furseth’s voice continued to be known particularly by Spartan fans as the homecourt voice for MSU basketball from 1968-2002 and MSU football from 1971-98. For more, see this feature from the MHSAA Basketball Finals programs written in 2013.

Furseth moved from East Lansing to Traverse City about 25 years ago. Click for his obituary and funeral arrangements.