Parks Thrives on Mound & at Plate to Help Deliver Forest Hills Eastern's 1st Title

By Tim Robinson
Special for MHSAA.com

June 18, 2022

EAST LANSING – Evan Parks wasn't nervous before or during Saturday's Division 2 championship game at McLane Stadium.

Not while he took a no-hitter into the sixth inning, and not while going 3-for-3 with an RBI at the plate. 

After his Ada Forest Hills Eastern team won its first baseball Finals title, defeating Grand Rapids Christian 3-0, it was a different story.

“It's starting to set in now,” he said with a nervous laugh.

Parks held Grand Rapids Christian to one hit, an infield single by Nathan Hedlund, walked three and struck out nine.

"With him on the mound, him at the plate, him in the field, we always feel very, very comfortable," Hawks coach Ian Hearn said. "Our motto all year has been 'Team,' be servants for one another and serve one another."

Grand Rapids Christian pitcher Camden Seth had a good outing, scattering 10 hits while strong defense kept Forest Hills Eastern from causing any more damage.

"They’re very talented," Hearn said. "They have a lot of very good baseball players, and coach (Brent) Gates does a really nice job. They kept us in check."

Grand Rapids Christian/Forest Hills Eastern baseballParks drove in the only run the Hawks would need in the third inning. With two out, Caleb Kuiper singled and scored on a double by Parks off the fence in right field. 

The Hawks added single runs in the fourth inning on a groundout by Max Ferrick, and in the fifth inning on a single by Leo Hearn.

“Hats off to them,” Gates said. “Their pitcher did a great job on the mound. We battled. We competed. We just came up short.”

The Hawks finished 39-4 after a 25-0 start.

“We had amazing chemistry,” Hearn said. “Right out of the gate, they competed well. We knew we were a pretty good team. I’m super proud of them and super proud of the way they handled themselves all season long.”

Parks, for his part, stayed focused, admitting he didn’t know he had no-hitter until the fifth inning. 

“I just threw strikers,” he said. “That’s what it comes down to. That’s how you get outs. We worked real hard all summer, all fall, all winter, even all spring and we finally got it done.”

Forest Hills Eastern’s work came to a close when Parks induced a game-ending double play.

There is no way to describe it,” Parks said of his reaction to the final out. “It means all the world when you see the ball down, your defense is playing for you. It means all the world when you see the play finally finish, and it's done.”

Click for the full box score.

PHOTOS: (Top) Ada Forest Hills Eastern raises its championship trophy Saturday at Old College Field. (Middle) A Hawks runner slides into third base as Grand Rapids Christian’s Nathan Hedlund (5) anticipates the throw.

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.