Schoolcraft Hopes Hoops Title Experience Feeds Another Deep Diamond Run

By Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com

April 26, 2022

SCHOOLCRAFT — Accompanied by fire trucks and greeted by friends and families, the Schoolcraft boys basketball team arrived back in town last month on a state basketball championship high.

Southwest CorridorBut several athletes did not have much time to celebrate.

Eight of those players are also on the Eagles baseball team, and coach Scott Muffley found his guys a bit behind schedule to start the season.

“I’m very excited for them, but one thing (the extended basketball season) did for us, we’re trying to build our pitch counts up with our pitchers and if we didn’t throw a lot during the wintertime, we’re kinda behind schedule,” he said.

“It does affect what we do on the mound and getting guys the number of reps.”

Two of those hoopsters, Luke Housler and first-team all-stater Tyler DeGroote, are the only seniors on a young baseball squad. Another, Eli DeVisser, is one of only two juniors, with Austin Jones.

“I’ve got some freshmen. I’ve got many, many, many sophomores, like two juniors and two seniors,” Muffley said.

On the plus side, “I’ve got a great group of guys, and they brought the love of the game back for me again.”

DeGroote, Housler and DeVisser were also on the baseball team that made the Division 3 Regional Finals last year in spite of starting the postseason with a losing record. The Eagles lost 4-0 to Pewamo-Westphalia in their Regional Final.

All three athletes said they hope to use that experience plus the hoops success to take the baseball team even farther.

With the Michigan weather impacting the schedule, the Eagles have played just four games so far, posting a 2-2 record after a Monday defeat at Paw Paw.

Schoolcraft baseball“We know how tight-knit the (basketball) team was,” Housler said. “There was a camaraderie with the team.

“I’m hoping to carry that team chemistry over (to baseball) with the eight guys from the basketball team. That’s what it takes to win a championship.”

Switching from the fast-paced basketball competition to baseball was not difficult, Housler said.

“Basketball is fast-paced, but I played baseball my whole life,” he said. “There’s a picture on the wall at my house of me holding a baseball when I was 2 years old.”

DeGroote said that even though a few of the eight did not see minutes in the championship basketball game, they still should help the baseball team based on their hoops experience.

Schoolcraft’s basketball run concluded with a 55-39 win over 2021 Division 3 champion Flint Beecher in the Semifinal, followed by a 59-49 victory over Menominee in the title game at Breslin Center.

“We all know how to win; we all know how to buy into something,” he said. “Maybe some of those kids didn’t get any minutes in the game, but they really helped us out in practice.

“That’s really what helps you go on, the kids who are willing to be there every day, even though they may not get any playing time.”

Muffley, who has coached for more than 20 years, skippered the Three Rivers baseball team before stepping down to spend time with his family.

He was also an MHSAA official and received a 20-year award three years ago, officiating football, baseball, basketball and softball.

His son, Jordyn Muffley, played in the minor leagues with the Tampa Bay Rays organization, and daughter Josie Muffley is the starting shortstop at Florida State. Both played at Portage Central.

“I stopped coaching for about five years to watch my kids grow,” he said. “That’s when I did a lot of officiating.”

Looking at this year’s team, Scott Muffley will rely heavily on returnees DeGroote, Housler and DeVisser to lead the team.

Schoolcraft baseball“All three are starters with the experience from the basketball team and winning a state championship,” Muffley said. “Eli was a sophomore last year and was one of the main contributors as far as batting average.”

DeVisser, a shortstop, agreed winning the basketball championship will help this spring.

“We know what it feels like to make it far into a tournament, so it gives us confidence,” he said. “It helps us once we get further into our season; it helps us play better because we don’t get as nervous because we made it far.”

Housler, who plays second base, is headed next to University of Tennessee, but not as an athlete.

“I just want to be a student,” he said. “It’s going to be weird without sports, but I’m excited. I’m ready to get out of state and go to a warmer area and experience a different culture.”

Muffley said Housler is “a very polite, mild-mannered kid.

“I’m really looking forward to what Luke’s going to do for us as a leader on the team.”

DeGroote, who pitches and plays first base, plans to play basketball and baseball at Division II Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Mo.

“Tyler brings a lot of leadership to the team, and he has a lot of athletic ability as well,” Muffley said.

The other five players making the transition from basketball to baseball are all sophomores: Bennett Ellison, Fischer Holmes, Colin Hotrum, Thomas Rutkoskie and Jaden VanderWiere.

Other sophomores are Easton Poulsen and Carsten Svoboda. The team’s freshmen are Gavin Hart, Gavin Knowlton, Ryley Bruner, Nyan Wonders and Ethan Goddard.

Pam ShebestPam Shebest served as a sportswriter at the Kalamazoo Gazette from 1985-2009 after 11 years part-time with the Gazette while teaching French and English at White Pigeon High School. She can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties.

PHOTOS (Top) Schoolcraft’s Eli DeVisser awaits a throw with Luke Housler (20) backing him up during Monday’s game against Paw Paw. (Middle) Clockwise from top left: Schoolcraft baseball coach Scott Muffley, Tyler Groote, DeVisser and Housler. (Below) DeGroote stretches to make the play at first. (Action photos by Stephanie Blentlinger/Lingering Memories Photography. Head shots by Pam Shebest.)

New Coach, New Home, New Success for Irish

By Tom Markowski
Special for Second Half

May 16, 2018

PONTIAC – Ryan Knutson is shocked by how well he and his teammates at Pontiac Notre Dame Prep played at the start of this season.

And the hope is that it will carry over to next month’s MHSAA Tournament. 

The Irish were 8-22 a year ago and started this spring 16-0. Notre Dame Prep is 21-4 with less than two weeks remaining in the regular season, and the optimism is high that the run won’t end in District play as it has for the past 21 seasons. The Irish have won one District title in the 24 years that the school has been open, in 1996.

Over the past seven seasons, Notre Dame Prep has won a combined six District games.

“The team morale is up, and we bonded as a team,” Knutson said. “I credit the new coaching staff. Going to Florida over spring break helped us bond. It was during that streak – we had some close games – that the team-bonding paid off.”

Jason Gendreau spent 10 seasons as head coach at Utica Eisenhower, with some success. The Eagles won District titles in 2009, 2011 and 2015. The 2015 season also included a 2-1 victory over Birmingham Brother Rice in a Division 1 Regional Semifinal.

Although he’s not looking back, Gendreau, who continues to teach in the Utica school system, said it was not an easy decision to make when he accepted the position at Notre Dame Prep last June.

“(Eisenhower) is loaded with depth,” he said. “Then there’s all the relationships you build over the years. You know what they say. When a coach leaves, 50 percent are pleased, 50 percent are unhappy.”

Pardon Gendreau if he chuckles now and then about the idea of being a coach at Notre Dame Prep. As a child his favorite team was Notre Dame, the one in South Bend. Nothing was better than watching the Irish playing football on a Saturday afternoon.

Add to this another tale of coincidence, or magic, if you will. One of his mentors is Bob Lantzy, the longtime football coach at Eisenhower who recently completed his second season as head football coach at Rochester Hills Stoney Creek. Lantzy was an all-state running back at Harper Woods Notre Dame in the early 1960s and, when Gendreau was hired at the other Notre Dame, Lantzy dusted off his green and gold jersey and hung it on a wall in his house.

For two seasons in the early 2000s Gendreau was an assistant football coach under Lantzy. Something clicked during that brief period and the two have remained good friends over the years.

“Bob and I talk just about every night,” Gendreau said. “He was my mentor (as a coach), but more importantly he’s been my mentor in life.

“You see, I played football at Belding and grew up answering to (then coach) Irv Sigler. There are no more polar opposites than Irv and Bob. Plus, you throw in the west side and how they approach football. The approach is very different. Irv was the ultimate motivator and got in your face. I tried to coach like that when I got to Ike. It didn’t work. Bob molded me.”

Gendreau was well aware he was taking over a program that had experienced limited success, when it was a member of the Detroit Catholic League and now as an independent. That didn’t matter to him. He knew the athletes he was about to coach were well-disciplined. Teach them the fundamentals, let them have some fun (the Florida trip was a first for this group) and maybe they could win a few more games.

“Lantzy told me opportunity is not time-related,” Gendreau said. “A big thing was, I was able to bring my entire staff over. As far as scheduling, having a lot of relationships with Oakland and Macomb County coaches I was able to schedule competitive schools that were bigger. We played Sterling Heights Stevenson. We played Troy and Troy Athens.  We went to Birch Run to play in a tournament with just nine guys because of prom. We made it to the final and lost to Ann Arbor (Gabriel) Richard.

“Plan? I don’t know if we had one, but our goal was to finish .500. We felt comfortable with that. We didn’t want to get beat up. Usually it takes 2-3 years to build a winner. It happened a lot sooner. Part of it is our staff understands our role. We have athletes who are hungry. They’re loyal to one another.”

Notre Dame Prep lost just two seniors last spring to graduation but even so, Knutson said he was surprised by the tremendous start.

He pointed to two factors that keyed the impressive start, and they’re related. One is the defense.

“It’s a main focus,” he said. “Defense is one of the most consistent things of our team. When your defense works, you don’t need as many runs to win. Then on offense you will look to move runners along, trying to get that extra base.”

The second is fundamentals. Knutson said Gendreau and his staff emphasize the finer points of the game: when to bunt, what pitch to look for in certain counts and just an overall awareness of the game.

Even when the offense isn’t producing, defense is a part of the game the Irish can count on. In a weekend series at Lake Orion in late April, Knutson said the team crushed the ball in victories over the host team and Ann Arbor Skyline. The next weekend Notre Dame Prep struggled at the plate and resorted to playing small ball.

The pitching has been consistent as well. River Shea, Jack Kraussman and Jacob Genord have combined for a 17-2 record, and each has an ERA of 2.10 or lower.

There are no superstars on this team. Just two of the eight seniors will go on to play in college. Infielder Brian Blakeslee will attend John Carroll University in Cleveland and play soccer and baseball. Outfielder Tommy Cavanaugh will attend Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, to play baseball.

Knutson, who leads the team in hitting (.448), said he doesn’t plan on playing at the next level and, instead, will attend Michigan State with the intent on majoring in engineering.

“It was hard last year,” he said. “I am so thankful the (new) staff has come in and we’ve been able to make some noise.

“It was that way in football, too. We surprised people by reaching a District Final. It’s kind of similar in baseball. We’re the underdogs. It kind of fueled us.”

***

Gendreau said coaching at a large school like Eisenhower has its drawbacks. One is the fact a coach must make cuts. Another is it’s the coach’s responsibility to take care of the field. That takes time.

A bonus for Gendreau was the facilities at Notre Dame Prep. In what is nearly a mirror of what previously was added at Grosse Pointe Woods University Liggett, the field at Notre Dame Prep is all turf. No dirt. Not even in the infield. Gendreau said even the bullpen area is turf.

When one considers the often brutal weather conditions in Michigan, having a turf field at your disposal removes a lot of headaches as far as field preparation, postponements and rescheduling.

“They finished that this past winter,” he said. “When I took the job, I was expecting a grass field.”

Tom Markowski is a columnist and directs website coverage for the State Champs! Sports Network. He previously covered primarily high school sports for the The Detroit News from 1984-2014, focusing on the Detroit area and contributing to statewide coverage of football and basketball. Contact him at [email protected] with story ideas for Oakland, Macomb and Wayne counties.

PHOTOS: (Top) Pontiac Notre Dame Prep players huddle on their new field this season. (Middle) Notre Dame Prep catcher Ryan Knutson looks to his dugout. (Below) The current Irish and 1972-73 alums stand together during the field dedication this spring. (Photos courtesy of the Pontiac Notre Dame Prep baseball program.)